Dangerous Beauty
by mellowenglishgal
Summary: Sequel to Drunken Binges: An attack on Caroline promises to be the first in a series of unfortunate events, and Giulia must use her brains and a certain immaculate Original to outmanoeuvre Katherine, and an even greater threat, and prevent an ancient Curse being broken. More bourbon, fewer clothes, secrets revealed and our favourite Salvatore. Summer in Mystic Falls is heating up.
1. Caroline

**A.N.** : Hello, lovelies. So we begin the second instalment of Giulia Salvatore's drunken shenanigans! You'll be delighted to know, this means a _lot_ more Elijah. I'm tingly just thinking about it.

* * *

 **Dangerous Beauty**

 _01_

 _Caroline_

* * *

" _My name is Katherine," Elena said softly, leaning over Caroline. Those dark curls Caroline was so unused to seeing on Elena glistened in the lamplight. She noticed Elena was wearing makeup – like actual makeup, eyeliner and lashings of mascara, her contouring was phenomenal. She frowned up at Elena, who was saying her name was Katherine. "I was hoping you could give the Salvatore brothers a message for me."_

" _What're you talking about?" Caroline grumbled, half-asleep and confused and getting very annoyed. What was Elena doing here? Couldn't she just text her boyfriends herself? She pushed herself up in the bed, backed against her mound of pillows, and frowned inquisitively up at Elena/Katherine. "What message?"_

 _Katherine smiled sweetly. "Game on."_

* * *

She was _crying_.

It was the only thing that cut through all her screaming impulses, the supercharged senses fighting for her attention, the sounds, scents, urges driving her toward the edge she might soon plummet over, the flashing-lights, the sickly aroma of sugar-syrup and hot-dogs, the screams and laughter piercing her ears like out-of-tune dog whistles, the churn and squeaks of metal as the rollercoasters thrashed past, the tilt-a-whirl spinning, even just stepping on the freshly-mown lawn caused a tsunami of scents to bombard her as her stomach churned, her teeth ached, her heart was squeezing and turning over and she wanted to burst into tears and laugh hysterically as thoughts of Matt bombarded her, her nausea and grief, her guilt over the dead man on the flatbed suffusing every cell in her body as she had sobbed silently to herself, miserable and confused, memories throwing her off-balance whenever they snuck up and took over her mind, behind the wheel of her car, in the locker-lined hallway full of pounding heartbeats and other scents overwhelming her – cigarettes, cloying vanilla body-spray, _blood_ , she could smell a couple having sex in one of the bathroom-stalls, heard _everything_ , could see so many more millions of stars above, the flickering imperfection of buzzing light-bulbs, the epic failure of matching foundation to complexion on half the girls grinning and completely unaware of how awful their flat-ironed hair smelled, her irrational irritation at Matt being so concerned about her, smothering and such a nice guy, her heart squeezed and she wanted to burst into tears again, distracted from it by the way her clothing scratched and rubbed against her supersensitive skin, and now, startled by the flames flickering three-feet high, mesmerised by the glorious colours, drawn to the heat washing over her chilled body.

"I told you what would happen if anyone else got hurt," Bonnie said coolly, glaring at Damon as he yelled and writhed on the ground.

"I didn't do this!" Damon shouted, through his pain.

"Bonnie, it wasn't his fault," Elena protested lamely.

" _Everything_ that happens is _his fault_ , Elena," Bonnie said vengefully.

She could smell Damon's flesh starting to burn as Bonnie's tear-streaked face glowed in the firelight, her expression glazed and venomous; she remembered the way Bonnie had _looked_ at her after grabbing her hands, how she'd run straight to the dead guy in the flatbed, crying. That look had hurt, she had _felt_ Bonnie's disbelief morphing into hatred within a second, picking up the scent of her anger even as Caroline suppressed confused sobs. Watching, hypnotised, as that deliciously-warm inferno started to engulf Damon – Damon the vampire, Damon who had fed on her, abused her, manipulated her, left Giulia powerless to protect her – Caroline was dimly aware she should be doing something – someone was on _fire_ and her First Aid training told her she needed to smother those flames, extinguish the oxygen supply to defeat the fire. But it was so _warm_.

In her mind, her senses were on overdrive, the sounds of the carnival bombarding her, the scents washing over her in an unappetising stench of perspiring bodies, old hot-dogs, candy-apples and oiled metal, the glittering lights and flickering leaves of the trees sighing in a scented breeze fighting for her attention as the fire hypnotised her, and she _bawled_ at the sight of Bonnie, so vengeful, crying at Damon screaming and flailing on the ground, covering her mouth with a squeal of anger mingled with lust she tried to quench for the scent of blood thick where the dead man lay prone on the flatbed, the scent of Elena's anguish as her pointless doe eyes gazed imploringly at Caroline as if she could do _anything_ about this situation.

It was Giulia who stepped in. All in black, a lean streak of darkness against the flames, fierce and tall, the look on her face so intense, so murderous – so _unforgiving_ – and Caroline actually jumped, swearing to herself she might've heard bone crack, as Giulia backhanded the possessed Bonnie, so hard her head swung around and she literally _flew_ five feet before crashing to the ground in a dazed heap. Instantly Caroline's nose twitched, scenting fresh blood, and the flames died, Elena leaped over to Bonnie lying barely-conscious on the ground by Damon – Caroline could already see a bruise flourishing beneath her skin where Giulia had struck her face, dazed and angry. Damon panted in relief, dusting off the last lingering wisps of flame clinging to his jeans, she could smell burned hair and Giulia's glorious _Georgio Armani_ 'Sì' perfume, a powerful swell of it enhanced by sweat as Giulia, worked up and upset, shouted at Bonnie in a terrifying way nobody had ever witnessed.

" _Haven't you done enough?! She's TURNED! You killed all those vampires – you tried to kill DAMON, you killed Tyler's DAD, you told KATHERINE about Damon's blood in her system, you put Caroline in the hospital in the first place – you KILLED HER!_ " she screamed. " _I HATE you. You're NOTHING. You're DEAD to me. I never want to see you again!_ "

No-one had ever heard Giulia shout; they had never seen her _break_. And it was the tears streaking down her face that _shocked her_ into an absurd clarity.

Jittery, upset, nauseous and overwhelmed, Caroline reached forward and took a gentle hold of Giulia's tiny waist as she advanced on Bonnie with her grazed elbow and bruised face, Elena looking wounded and useless, and practically lifted her friend away.

She had never seen Giulia cry.

Not once, in their nearly-eighteen years of friendship. The intense, irreverent Giulia who analytically ripped apart _Romeo and Juliet_ as a warning against filial disobedience, peered intrigued into bloody wounds obtained on the playground and regarded every soccer-field injury as a personal trophy, fell asleep during _The Notebook_ and resisted going to see _The Last Song_ like most people did the dentist, Giulia who had sat catatonic and bone-dry-eyed at her own beloved daddy's funeral…was now… _sobbing_. Still functioning, still intense and ferocious, filled with a kind of vicious rage from which one did not return, but shaking all over with the silent kind of sobs that spoke of the deepest, truest grief, heart-break.

It was those crystal tears sliding over Giulia's perfect cheekbones, clear and smudging her exquisite minimalist winged eye that cut through Caroline like that sword in _The Bodyguard_ through silk. She had never been so sharply-focused before, or shocked.

Giulia was _crying_.

Caroline had never seen her best-friend cry. And it was that, more than anything else, upset and confused as Damon tried to stake her when she just needed _help_ , she needed someone to hug her and tell her it was okay, _she_ was okay, Elena sticking up for her when Damon tried to stake her, Stefan's frantic attempts to comfort her making her flinch with irritation, that muted everything unnecessary.

This _stillness_ came over her, calm and yet devastated, watching her best-friend cry. Letting go of Giulia's waist in surprise, Caroline gazed at those tears rolling freely down Giulia's face, ignored, as if she wasn't even aware they were there, taking with them a delicately-fine film of mineral powder foundation true-matched to Giulia's flawless moonlight complexion. In her anguish, her cheekbones were even more pronounced, so much like the pained Damon on the ground, for a moment in her bleary-eyed gaze to Caroline they looked almost twins, so different in personality she could barely believe they were related, and she had to wonder… How much of the story did she not know?

Heedless of her tears, the sobs silently racking her body, Giulia took Caroline's hand and they stumbled into the nearest building, the locker-rooms, Caroline got one glimpse of herself in a mirror and stifled a scream of anguish and frustration, crying.

"I'm a murderer," Caroline whimpered, shivering, shoving her hands under the warm stream of water Giulia was dousing handtowels under. "And I'm a monster."

"You're not," Giulia whispered. Panting, Caroline stared in horror at her blood-stained reflection, black veins flickering beneath her even darker eyes glowing red with blood, her fangs aching as they pierced her lower-lip, unused to them.

"God! And why does this keep happening to my face?"

"It's part of your transformation," Giulia said, her voice unnaturally hoarse, almost deadened. "Your emotions are heightened, it's completely normal."

"I'm hideous!" Caroline whimpered, hiding her face in her blood-stained hands. She could still smell it, her fangs throbbed and she cried harder. Giulia seized her hands with that strange strength she had always had, the one that was completely internal and had nothing to do with weights, and pulled them away from her face. Blinking through her mascara-stinging tears, Caroline choked and sniffed, focusing on the face in front of her.

Caroline had _never_ seen her like this, and stood, stunned and heartbroken as Giulia, choking on silent sobs, her entire body shaking, hot salty tears pouring down her face, her makeup smearing and bleeding, irritating her eyes, those exquisitely-shaped lips trembling as tears dripped off the end of her nose and pooled at the corners of her mouth, dripping off her chin onto her décolleté, her low, tiny-strapped racerback tank spotted with tears as her hands shook, and she patted delicately at Caroline's chin and mouth with the damp handtowels, trying to get rid of the blood smeared there.

Heartbroken, and still looking after Caroline.

It was so unbelievably heart-breaking in itself that Caroline's eyes burned and she felt yet more tears stream down her own cheeks, hot and salty, smearing the shimmering black eye-shadow she had put on so it stung, and Giulia just gazed at her face, taking in those monster eyes, the freaky flickering black veins, the shining glimpse of fangs amongst the blood-stained mess of her mouth. She reached up neatly-painted fingertips, warm and wet from the handtowels, gently touching those unnerving black veins.

Standing in the restroom, blood-stained and disoriented, watching the best-friend she had never seen cry fall apart even while she took care of her, calmed her down. It was so out-of-character, so unusual…this was Giulia _devastated_. And yet here she was, taking care of Caroline, gently wiping off the blood, the evidence of Caroline's murder, not balking or crying at the sight of Caroline's changed face, not narrowing her eyes in a glare of hatred or accusation.

"You're beautiful," Giulia said, her eyes spilling over with tears, her voice so low and sad, Caroline would do anything not to hear her sound like that again. "You've always been beautiful." Caroline sobbed again, but this time it was out of relief, the tension and terror inside her sifted away like dandelion fuzz in a breeze as Giulia wiped away the blood on her face, regardless of her shaking hands.

She was dead. A vampire. Elena – _Katherine_?! – had killed her.

And Giulia was still taking care of her. Still reassuring her of the person _she_ saw when she looked at Caroline.

Car would give anything to see the way she looked inside Giulia's head.

All of a sudden it didn't matter what was happening to her. What _had_ happened. She forgot that she was seventeen, a new vampire, and terrified, horror-struck by her own mauling of that man, unconcerned about Bonnie's reaction as much as she wanted to roll her eyes, suddenly, at Elena's pitiful attempts to actually contribute anything to the situation. All that mattered was that Giulia, who never cried, was sobbing.

She had always been the rock, the ego-boost, the encouraging one, Caroline's personal life-coach and cheerleader, pushing her into new and extraordinary things, reassuring her, the only one who had ever seen Caroline as the person Car _wanted_ to be. The tough bitch who always sensed when a line had been crossed, when feelings had been hurt, who never made waves except if Caroline was being hurt by others' thoughtless actions, the hyper-intelligent, tough, emotionally-detached girl Caroline had always looked up to as the epitome of independence, the true definition of a _loyal_ friend, her rock and best-friend, the one who had snuck cheat-sheets to her during Algebra tests, backed her up with _everything_ , put all her efforts into making sure Caroline was happy and living the life she had always pictured for herself, answered every phone-call no matter the time, dropped everything for her…

Caroline had broken her. Her _death_ – her rebirth as a vampire – had shattered the extremely delicate grasp Giulia had on everything. The last few months since her father's death Caroline knew Giulia had not been herself – she had been struggling, but never let it show to anyone who wasn't, well, Caroline. She'd known Giulia would get through it, she was tough and had no-one to rely on but herself so, how could she let herself down by continuing to live her life in a permanent state of drunken irreverence?

But this was different. Why had Caroline turning shoved Giulia over the edge, when her own father's death had…just caused her to go out-of-control, always flirting with the brink, dipping her toes over, hopping back with a rich laugh and irreverent smirk and wink.

The tears streaming down her face, her body shuddering with silent sobs, her hands shaking as she cleaned Caroline's face of blood, Caroline felt that calm sweep over her again, the clarity, and she held onto it this time. This time, she had to look after Giulia. She wouldn't give in, not again, despite the heartbeat she heard thundering in Giulia's veins, the scent of her perfume mingling exquisitely with the subtlest hint of sweat and the intoxicating scent of Giulia's blood, the vein she could just see ticking at the side of her throat – the way Giulia's hair was drawn up into a high, wrapped ponytail, wearing that low-cut black tank-top with skinny straps – all perfectly designed for maximum access to that vein, her blood… This was Giulia, her best-friend, her broken best-friend who never, ever cried, standing here sobbing and wiping away the blood of the man Caroline had just killed. That would not be Giulia. She wouldn't let it.

Caroline told herself she wasn't hungry. She muted her ears to the sound of Giulia's heartbeat, focused only on the scent of Giulia's perfume and the lingering, refreshing sweetness of a candy-apple she had eaten an hour ago on her breath, the salt of her tears, and pulled her best-friend into a hug. Careful not to squish her bones with her newfound strength, ignoring the impulse to sink her receding fangs into Giulia's throat, she pulled a shaking Giulia into a hug – the kind she now bet Giulia had been drawn into since the moment her dad had died. Could a person feel safe when they were being hugged by a vampire, even if she was her best-friend?

Pushing it all away, Caroline let herself get caught up in the simple security and comfort of a hug, the simplest and most effective of all medicines. In that moment, the calm she had experienced watching Giulia cry swept through her entire body, gentleness and concern replacing fear and confusion, and gradually, Giulia stopped shaking. They stood in the restroom for God knew how long, until Giulia sniffed, choked back a last sob, and finished wiping off Caroline's face.

"Why'd Katherine do this to me?" Caroline whispered. Giulia, her eyes becoming glassy again, shook her head, nostrils flaring delicately as she suppressed the urge to let her lips tremble and tears pour again. Depleted, upset but unable to summon the energy to keep crying, Caroline turned to the mirror with slumped shoulders, exhausted. She saw Giulia had wiped away all the blood – but they both looked a mess, their eye-makeup smeared beyond salvaging, bleary-eyed, wan, exhausted. It was _her_ turn now, to take care of Giulia. She filled the sink with warm water, held onto Giulia's ponytail, and had handtowels ready when Giulia gasped and reappeared, having sunk her face into the water. Dripping, she re-emerged, scrubbing the makeup off her face with the handtowels. Caroline did the same, and they both yawned, exhausted, Giulia shivering slightly from the emotional exertion that had physically so drained her.

Carefully, she unlocked the restroom-door, and they traipsed to their lockers, side-by-side in the locker-room; Giulia used her toner and cotton-balls to clean up the last traces of their makeup, and massaged moisturiser into her face as Caroline ran a brush through her blood-stained hair.

"What do we do now?" Caroline asked. Vampire novels and TV shows rarely traced the actions of a new-born vampire – and anyway, she remembered Damon telling her that "I live in the real world, where vampires burn in the sun" after he'd dissed _New Moon_. She remembered him saying he missed Anne Rice, she was "so on it".

Giulia sounded tired and she sighed, "We redo our makeup. Damon buries the body in the woods. And I tell you everything."

* * *

 **A.N.** : For all of you who expected Giulia to go postal…she'll always do the unexpected, I promise you that.


	2. Transition

**A.N.** : Hi everyone, thank you so much for all your reviews – in just _hours_ of uploading this story, it really is humbling to me that you all – actually quite ravenously – went for my new story! So thank you to everyone who has already reviewed, this chapter is for you.

* * *

 **Dangerous Beauty**

 _02_

 _Transition_

* * *

Pushing her tears away, Caroline finally asleep, Giulia bundled Firenze into her lap, a purring ball warm against her stomach, scratching him behind his ears, and fiddled with her phone. With the blistering sunshine and Sheriff Forbes' crazy work schedule, she had consented, after a suggestion from Damon, that Caroline could stay at the Boarding House, Giulia and Damon could look out for Car and make sure she was getting enough rest.

Giulia had brought Firenze, Caroline her _Gilmore Girls_ DVDs, but the provisions Giulia had promised for their marathon had altered. Sure, they ordered pizza, takeout, ate too many _Sno-Balls_ and _Pop-Tarts_ , Giulia got sick after too many fries, one too many helpings of spaghetti and meatballs, brioche burgers and blueberry pancakes (watching _Gilmore Girls_ they were sticking to a strict Lorelai-approved diet), and lethargic after forgoing the gym or running out in the woods to the quarry to keep watching episode after episode of the most glorious mom on TV: her love for Lorelai was boundless, they should be in the same support-group for coffee addiction, and Emily and Richard's passive-aggressiveness was worthy of awards. _Jelly Belly_ beans, chocolates from Caroline's stint in the hospital, Sno-Balls, Mallomars and pies, Giulia couldn't look at another sweet for months. But… Damon had also introduced Caroline to the chest-freezer full of blood-bags pilfered from hospitals, clinics and blood-banks in a hundred-mile radius.

Everyone was still in a mild state of shock about Caroline. But more over Giulia's reaction to her transformation – she had never blown up like that, and _hitting_ someone was not something Giulia believed in: she took MMA and boxing classes so she could defend herself, but she remembered once being slapped by Elena in the eighth grade, and had never forgiven her for it. She had even told Miranda, who had grounded Elena for a week and tried to impress on her that it was _never_ okay to hit someone – that it was vicious and humiliating. And yet when she had seen Bonnie torturing Damon, felt the heat of the flames, seen the blood smeared on Caroline's face…she had snapped.

She hadn't heard anything from Bonnie, but through Stefan's Deeply Disapproving expression Giulia knew Elena had to be hard-core pouting. And she couldn't give a flying fuck.

After emotionally flaying them at the hospital the night Caroline was admitted, Giulia had hoped Bonnie and Elena might have taken something from it. Perhaps dwelled more on their actions – or inaction – than on their boyfriend's hair, or their own overblown victim-mentality, and how it affected others.

Caroline was a vampire.

And it filled Giulia with a quiet rage that Bonnie had been more upset about the dead carnie than about their oldest friend being turned – because of _her_ – into a vampire. Caroline's _life_ had been cut short: everything she had ever wanted for herself would probably never happen because of Bonnie's loose lips and bad attitude.

Caroline would never get married – never grow _up_. She could go to college as many times as she wanted but she would always look seventeen. She would never have children, never grow old with anyone. Never grow old with _Giulia_ , in their Florida rest-home with bejewelled sweat-suits, pickled with colourful cocktails and driving golf-carts dangerously, wolf-whistling at the hot cabana-boys at the club. If Giulia could whistle.

They would never grow up together. Giulia would get older and older…one day she would _die_ …and Caroline would remain unchanged. The eternal, highly-organised optimist, seventeen years old, fearless and kind.

That thought had come to Giulia again and again since realising Caroline had turned. Her best-friend would forever remain seventeen years old. Like Stefan. Vampires may age mentally, _mature_ , but Caroline would always be seventeen physically. Her lips twitched as she stroked Firenze's head with her finger. Caroline would always fit into her cheerleading uniform.

One of the positives in Caroline's Pro/Con list – she was taking the Rory Gilmore approach to handling her own life transition, with chores and lists (the Boarding House had never been so clean) – was the fact she would never have to diet or exercise. Her figure would remain as slender as a whip for the rest of eternity. Giulia didn't point out that in the 1700s a grossly voluptuous figure had been the ideal for beauty, demonstrating the wealth to afford rich foods, or that in the 16th Century Elizabeth I had set the fashion for a falsely high forehead, hair being plucked from the natural hairline, eyebrows shaved off, etcetera… The idea of one's body staying the same forever seemed like a good one, in the beginning…but how often had vampires _not_ fit the evolving fashions because at the time they were turned the world had been so utterly different? So she would let Caroline enjoy being able to eat three waffles in one sitting and _never_ have to worry about the carbs. In fact, she had eaten continuously since they had collapsed onto the daybed and sofa in the great hall of the Boarding House, in shock and mentally and physically exhausted.

Sighing, Giulia glanced across the room at Caroline now snoring lightly under a mound of bedding Giulia had retrieved from one of the airing cupboards. Cold-blooded now, Caroline didn't get cold – but she was attracted to warmth, and she laughed half-heartedly that Giulia was like her own personal space-heater during the night – and a midnight snack, if she felt peckish and her self-control slipped. It hadn't, she had already proved she was not a Ripper. Like Damon, blood defined Caroline's new diet but it didn't define her personality. She had to have blood like Giulia did protein.

A deep sadness had suffused Giulia's body since her initial breakdown at Caroline turning. Rage was a dangerous emotion to indulge in, and a self-destructive one, and she preferred not to, but every time her thoughts turned to Bonnie an icy wrath crept through her veins, she tasted copper in her mouth and her hands shook; she had to suppress the urge to rip her apart with her teeth and fingernails.

Katherine had only taken advantage of a situation orchestrated – unintentionally – by Bonnie, but therein lay the danger: Bonnie was _thoughtless_. She had caused Caroline's transition due to simple carelessness.

 _She_ had obviously never seen the War-era posters: ' _Loose Lips Sink Ships'_ , ' _Careless Talk Costs Lives_ '.

And apparently she still hadn't gotten over herself. The only reason Caroline was in the hospital at all, the reason Tyler's dad was dead, Damon almost burned to a crisp, the reason Caroline had needed Damon's blood to heal her, was because of Bonnie. Because she hadn't disarmed the Gilbert device Giulia had wanted to take a hammer to. They had been so sure of themselves – Elena, Stefan – convinced there was nothing Bonnie could ever want to do more than disarm a mystical object spelled to harm vampires – to hurt _Damon_. Damon, who she blamed all the world's evil on.

She bit her lip, scrolling through the call-log on her cell, squinting against the brightness of the illuminated screen in the dark room. _Sheila_ was a number frequently called, their last phone-conversation nearly an hour long: she tapped a few texts away to Cara – she was giving up vibrators for Lent, Giulia was sceptical but supportive – to the girls on the cheerleading squad about a pre-Classic detox and pamper session: Tyler had been texting her about swimming-hole catering during spring break: Kelly and some of her new friends from UV about pre-break gigs and parties in the city, the last few _Scavenger Hunt_ events before break, and she sighed, frowning at the three failed calls to Elijah. He had been _incommunicado_ but other sources – she had been emotionally blackmailed into playing online poker with Vera in a vain hope that technology would reduce Giulia's odds of winning; but it was simple mathematics, the same she would apply to any slot-machine in Vegas – had informed her that Elijah was recruiting.

Whatever that meant, it felt ominous: coupled with her knowledge Elijah had signed a six-month lease on a condo in Richmond, and talking with Sheila Bennett, Giulia knew the cosmos was starting to align. Now, was she Hades, set to unleash the Titans upon the world to punish his brothers? Or was she Lara, following signs from her dead father to confront the Illuminati and destroy a time-bending Mayan triangle, to save the world from Iain Glen, whom she'd always rather liked more than Daniel Craig… Whether she was the gleeful villain or a reluctant hero, Giulia changed her mind day-to-day. All she knew was that she had to be prepared for what was coming. And it was coming; Elijah signing that lease, Katherine appearing in town… If there were ever signs of an impending apocalypse, the only thing less subtle would've been another Hurricane Katrina.

Giulia smiled without any humour: their very own Hurricane Kat _e_ rina had blown into town, and had managed to destroy the already so tenuous relationships within their disjointed group in one night. She had manipulated already devolving situations and Giulia felt the only way forward now was to accept that Katherine was not at fault for all of what was going on. She was pressing buttons, manipulating situations they had left open for her to exploit – the bond between the four girls; the repercussions of Bonnie not removing the spell from that device; the gooey mess that was Damon's feelings for Elena; Damon's conflicting feelings for Katherine herself; and worst of all, the bond between the brothers, already so strained – healing, as it never had before in 150 years, but still strained, and Elena had wedged herself firmly in the middle. Their own mess had allowed Katherine to saunter in and wreak the havoc she was known for.

She set pensive in the dark, Firenze's purring becoming softer and less frequent as he dozed off, way past his bedtime. Since she had brought Caroline to the Boarding House Giulia hadn't had time to herself to check her phone, see if Elijah had responded to her voicemail, or even worry about homework still unfinished at her house: it had been not only a marathon of _Gilmore Girls_ , junk-food and a shock-intro to Vampire Living, Giulia had had to fill Caroline in on everything she didn't know. Everything that had happened since Elena's parents' car had come off the Wickery Bridge last June…

Some things she had kept private. She told Caroline about the new friends she had made – Ashlyn; revealing that Cara and Vera, the distant aunts who had come to the Miss Mystic pageant were actually her ancient Florentine ancestresses, her entire family descending from Cara – but not Elijah. He was…still hers.

He was implicit in all this, and she was an expert poker-player: she never revealed her hand until it was time to win the game and clean out her opponents.

Maybe she'd dangle that guillotine over Katherine's head when there was just cause, but so far she hadn't had any interactions with her, and Giulia preferred to lull her into a false sense of her own overconfidence that this entire situation was her own to manipulate.

No, she hadn't told Caroline about Elijah. And…she hadn't told Caroline about the curse. It was naïve of her to even consider that Katherine had lost the moonstone, that Elijah was set only on capturing her, that no word would ever reach the deadly Klaus, but she clung to the faintest hope that her friends never had to be put through the machinations of an Original civil-war. From what she had read in Vera's diary, from what Cara and Ashlyn had told her, she knew the Originals were a family of brothers and sisters, bound by magic and blood for eternity, perpetually at war with each other. Why, she didn't know – but Cara had hinted there were two, on a slim chance possibly even _three_ of the Originals travelling the earth of their own volition. What had happened to the others – Klaus: _He_ had happened to them. And he would happen to _them_ if things went awry.

She really just wanted to talk to Elijah now. He didn't know about Caroline, and she wanted to bawl and scream at the same time, she…wanted someone impartial to bitch to and cry in front of without feeling vulnerable, and talk things over with. She and Elijah had spoken almost every day since Christmas and it was a hard habit to break, just wanting to hear his calm, warm voice – he was so intuitive, knowing the right questions to ask, sensing when she was holding back, gently cajoling her – or forgoing talking at all when he sensed her mood was dangerous, instead they both worked out their frustration and feelings of helplessness. And she was learning more and more about the person Elijah was, not the reputation or the legendary figure, the eldest of the Originals…

He was an introvert, self-denying to a masochistic, self-destructive degree, concerned with everyone's happiness but his own. Phone-sex with him was as psychologically revealing as it was erotic; it took a combination of gentle cajoling, playful teasing and outright ferocity and selfishness on her part to get him to open up about what he _wanted_ , and more importantly to tell _her_ what that was. It wasn't in his nature to indulge in his own happiness.

Giulia guessed that in a life as long as Elijah's, he had had many experiences, all of them had made him who he was now, and every one of them had left its own scar on such a deeply loyal and protective person. A thousand years on and Elijah was surrounded by people who loved him, and yet he was never more isolated inside his own head than when he was in a crowded room. Vera had told Giulia once – in the midst of an online- _Scrabble_ battle during which much wine had been consumed on Vera's part – that Elijah had neglected his heart for so long in favour of his better judgement that he had forgotten how _strong_ love made him.

It broke her heart to think that of Elijah, and yet she could see it. She experienced it every time he resisted giving into his own needs when they were on the phone – but early on, she had refused to indulge him. And he had come to expect that he would have to be forward and selfish if wanted any of the delicious bits.

She sighed, eyeing her phone-screen, and locked it after sending a few texts. Caroline was sleeping soundly, and Giulia nestled Firenze in his little bed before tiptoeing out of the room. Downstairs, she eyed the refrigerator – despite having moved out, the Boarding House had turned into Grand Central Station for all supernatural lately and Giulia had stocked the pantry in preparation for Caroline's stay, their _Gilmore Girls_ marathon. She couldn't sleep, her insomnia having returned with a heightened sense of anxiety – Katherine's arrival, Damon almost being lit up like Guy Fawkes by John Gilbert, again by Bonnie, knowing something none of the others did – the doppelganger, the sacrifice, the impending doom they all were threatened with, not from Katherine, but from Klaus… It was nearly midnight but she traipsed into the kitchen, brought out her copy of _Mastering the Art of French Cooking_ gifted to her by Caroline for Christmas, and set to making _boeuf bourguignon_.

She was drying off the stewing steak with paper-towel when she faintly heard the front-door open and close. Perhaps her noise – the heavy almost-antique _Le Creuset_ casserole dish scraping against the hob as she seared the meat – or the scent of raw meat drew him in, and Stefan sighed, frowning at what she was doing, hands in his hoodie pockets before he slunk into a chair at the island.

"That's gonna take hours to cook," he observed. Then he frowned at her sombrely. "You not sleeping again?"

"Why do you ask questions to which you already know the answers?" Giulia asked gently, turning over a piece of meat to sear another side. She glanced up at Stefan. "Elena kept you late tonight."

"You and Caroline have your slumber-parties, we have ours," Stefan said, a twinkle in his eye; he was attempting to be humorous, but Giulia pretended to wretch and vomit in the casserole dish. He sighed, rolling his eyes. "Where's Damon?"

"He's gone on a blood-run – Georgia, and then Pocahontas County," Giulia said, and Stefan raised an eyebrow, surprised.

"Why Georgia? Or Pocahontas County?"

"Because it's out of pattern from where he's been hitting lately," Giulia said. She knew a decent haul from a hospital could sustain Damon for weeks, if he wasn't too indulgent – if he kept himself fuelled on booze and a high-carb diet. "We've now got two _non-vegan_ vampires in town to cater for, and I for one don't fancy tapping a vein."

Stefan gave her a tired smile. "We both know if Caroline's life depended on it, you would."

"But it doesn't," Giulia said, hiding her astonishment that Stefan had this insight into her and Caroline's bond. He sighed softly.

"How's she doing?"

"She's asleep."

"That's not what I meant," Stefan said. Giulia knew that. She sighed, frowning. She set the tongs down that she'd been turning the meat with and eyed him shrewdly. His body-language, his facial expression – he was relaxed, calm, even, not in the least bit inclined for a confrontation; if anything he was wary. Since the night Caroline turned, everyone but Caroline seemed to be walking on egg-shells around Giulia. Damon and Stefan had known her since she was born – so had Bonnie, Elena, Caroline – and yet none of them had ever seen Giulia react the way she had.

She had…scared them. She knew that; she had scared herself.

But Caroline – she would astonish them.

"She's the same person she's always ever been, Stefan," Giulia said, saddened that nobody else could see it, defensive of her friend and annoyed by the reputation she had amongst others. She sighed and turned back to the casserole, turning the seared meat. "If anything her transformation's just helped her shed all the bullshit insecurities other people have piled on her." And by 'other people', she meant the constant struggle to compete with, let alone outdo, Elena. Car's greatest worry during the Miss Mystic Falls pageant had been that she wasn't good enough to beat Elena for the crown – a ridiculous anxiety, but to Caroline a very real one.

"Did she tell you about us going hunting?" Stefan asked, a smile lingering on his lips.

"You mean, you epically failing at trying to teach her to munch on bunnies?" Giulia corrected, amused, and starting to relax in the almost friendly atmosphere despite herself. "Yes, I heard about that – and she now knows all about the sad fates of Daffodil and Rumball." Stefan rolled his eyes, but he smiled still.

"What else have you told her?" he asked curiously.

"Everything," Giulia said, unfazed. She continued adding things to the casserole dish, following the recipe. She frowned at it, and glanced at Stefan.

"What's wrong?"

"Um… I need a bottle of red. Burgundy," she said, admitting with a wince, "I still don't know my way around wines."

"Well, we're a bourbon family," Stefan said easily. "I'll go find a great one." When he returned, he uncorked the bottle, smiling warmly at the rich sound it made, heralding an excellent vintage, and let it breathe while Giulia continued to prepare the meat. Stefan leaned against the counter, arms folded across his chest, sombre expression back in place.

"What's wrong?" she asked lightly, sensing something epically bad and not her fault, but something he was about to make her problem.

"I don't know if he's told you, or if you already know… The night Katherine killed Caroline, she'd first come here to see Damon… She got inside his head," Stefan said, sighing deeply. She waited for the kicker. "According to Elena, he got drunk, and went over to her house… They argued about…lots of things – he killed Jeremy. Snapped his neck."

Giulia glanced up sharply, her heart stopping. No. She hadn't known that. No-one had told her that – but then, she wasn't on speaking-terms with Elena.

"He's okay," Stefan said quickly, seeing the look in her eyes – her poker-face remained as flawless as ever, but like Damon, one could see worlds in her eyes. Stefan sighed. "He was wearing one of the Gilbert rings. Before he left town, apparently, John had given Jeremy his father's ring."

"So Jeremy came back," Giulia said, finding it difficult to talk with a throat so constricted. Stefan nodded.

"He came back – he was… _terrified_ , but he's…adjusting," Stefan said, his tone ironic and a complete understatement.

"Why would Damon kill Jeremy?" Giulia asked, scrutinising Stefan's face.

"Katherine," Stefan sighed. "She got inside his head, she undid everything that was good about him." Giulia clenched her jaw, refraining from saying what _she_ truly thought about Damon's _goodness_ – he was more the Byronic hero to Stefan's comic-book villain/tortured-hero epic struggle of Jekyll and Hyde, Two Face/Harvey Dent.

"Damon wouldn't kill Jeremy because of something Katherine said," Giulia said quietly. "What did Elena say to him?" Stefan frowned, and Giulia sighed impatiently. She knew it was unkind to push, and he didn't like dwelling on the idea, but Damon _had_ confessed to trying to kiss "Elena" the night Caroline ended up in the hospital – he was growing this gooey, mushy, disgusting and woefully misplaced _feelings_ for Elena. Giulia was sure they resembled some sort of a tapeworm. But she knew it was there, that _feeling_ Damon had for Elena, the Grinch's heart growing a fraction, but growing still… If Stefan wanted to ignore that, for the sake of wanting to keep the peace in the face of a greater threat, so be it, but Giulia wouldn't sit by and allow him to actively place the blame on someone else when clearly, Elena had had a hand in Damon reacting so homicidally. He didn't kill just _anyone_ unless he was pushed to the brink and deeply upset, frustrated and helpless in the situation he found himself in.

"Giulia…"

"Stefan, you know your brother better than anyone," she said sternly. "We both know that Elena got to him way before Katherine did. So however he reacted, Elena triggered it. Katherine may have spilled the gasoline but it was Elena who lit the flame."

"Why are you so sure Elena had anything to do with it?" Stefan frowned.

"Because Elena is a girl who will draw you in, and when you ask too much she will push. She's a _pusher_ – and she'll _hurt_ you," Giulia said, with mounting annoyance. In the brief moment between Stefan's rehab and Katherine arriving in town, Giulia had seen Jeremy only a few times, due to her new schedule, but they had cleared the air a little about Giulia's role in the supernatural shit-storm their town was devolving into. Things were different between them but not as drastically bad as they were between Jeremy and his sister – it was one thing for Giulia to keep the secrets of her own family, but for his own to continue lying to him, despite the death of his girlfriend, his own endangerment, kidnapped by Elena's vampiric birth-mother, while his new vampire girlfriend had run out on him without a word… Elena had crossed a line with Jeremy, and no amount of threats from Damon had fixed the rupture between the last of the Gilberts. Jeremy felt, and hurt deeply; Elena was a pusher who had to fix everything immediately, her way, so _she_ could feel better, so she didn't have to feel guilty. Jeremy wasn't that easy to appease, and he felt wounded and betrayed by her continued secrecy – and endangering Jenna by keeping her ignorant – that, at least, worked in Giulia's favour, one thing she clung to that there was still hope she could mend a relationship with him: that _she_ had brought Jenna out of the dark, realising the danger they were all in.

She sighed and glanced at Stefan. "So what were they talking about that was so upsetting that it pushed Damon over the edge?"

Stefan pursed his lips, closing his eyes, but he admitted, begrudgingly, seemingly in pain, "She told me he said he has feelings for her, that what they've been doing the past few months, there is something between them… She told him it's…me. It's always been me."

"And to hear that after Katherine said the very same thing," Giulia said quietly. "What is it about these girls, they think they can just _play_ with him? They can _never_ deserve him." Katherine, first: he had loved her too deeply, she had become instantaneously bored before her excitement could even grow. Elena, now: something slow and cautious was growing inside a heart long afraid to feel, and she was frightened of it, resistant to what Giulia could see was happening. The two _were_ bonding, she had seen it. _She_ knew Damon wasn't the evil monster they all believed him to be by _half_.

Damon was the brother who pretended to be evil, Stefan, the one who pretended to be good. One wanted to get things done, actively played the bad guy because someone had to fill the role; and the other desperately wanted to be the hero, the good guy everyone turned to.

She wondered if Elena still even acknowledged that the vicious murder (investigation ongoing) in Grove Hill, the most brutal in the town's history, had been Stefan's doing. That he was capable of doing anything like that…sandwiching the parts back together after blacking out from gorging on the blood he so craved, riddled with guilt but driven by the rapture of blood.

Stefan was frowning at her thoughtfully. She arched an eyebrow at him, "What?"

"I…would've thought hearing he'd killed Jeremy would have a different effect on you," he said carefully. Giulia picked up the wine-bottle, debating whether to just down it.

"You said he was wearing a Gilbert ring," Giulia said, a calm suffusing her body. Jeremy was alive; therefore any reaction on her part would be superfluous to that simple fact. She sighed softly. "You'd think after a hundred and fifty years you'd have finagled a couple of those rings for your own family. Stolen them from the Gilberts you slaughtered in 1864."

"When I killed Jonathan Gilbert I had no idea about the rings – I left town before I could discover he survived my attack," Stefan sighed. He hated talking about his Ripper phases but Nurse Lexi said it was healthy for him to acknowledge his darker side, accept that there was that part of him, not ignore it in the hopes it would go away. "And at the time, I wasn't the Stefan who would've taken one of those rings to…to protect Damon's son." The infant who had survived childbirth, survived Katherine even, Giulia supposed… She wondered briefly how Katherine had regarded the tiny baby left motherless.

But it stung, what Stefan had said. That in a hundred and fifty years Stefan hadn't found a way to protect his family from – himself. From Damon. Between the two they had managed to kill off half Giulia's family, the ones who hadn't disappeared without a trace like her uncle, Joshua. That there was nothing he could have done in the interim to protect them, when he was so hell-bent on being the hero, protecting, _saving_ everyone he could.

"Once upon a time you gave Elena that pendant filled with vervain to protect her," Giulia said quietly, remembering the night Coach Tanner had been killed. It felt like another life, when Bonnie had discovered her emerging witch powers, and Elena hadn't yet known the secret, pushing her way into their lives. That night, her dad had worked the snack-shack during the game… She eyed Stefan, tired and less willing to fight than usual. "You petitioned Bonnie to make a daylight-ring for Caroline, even knowing Bonnie's position in all this; did you ask her to make me an eternity-ring?" She touched the heavy lapis lazuli ring on Stefan's right hand, clunky and antique, Victorian to its core. She sighed, shaking her head when Stefan didn't respond. "That's all I'm saying…"

After a moment, she added the wine to the seared meat; it hissed and bubbled madly against the smoking-hot pan but the more wine she added, the more it calmed. She added the amount required in the recipe, and glanced at Stefan after taking a swig. "Damon snapped my father's neck too. He _didn't_ wake up. And I'm still here. Making _boeuf bourguignon_ and trying to make the best out of the mess you two have both made out of my life. You thought I'd be upset Damon killed Jeremy? He came _back_. That's the difference."

* * *

 **A.N.** : What do you think? I want to convey that Giulia is pulling her shit together a bit more, she's maturing, she's dealing with the hand she's been given, she's not going to let the boys steamroller her life.


	3. All About the Setting

**A.N.** : Here that teeny tiny voice? That's my muffled attempts to say hi under the _mountain_ of reviews you've sent me! Thank you, everyone! To everyone who reviewed without signing in, I really wish I could reply. A lot of reviews are written in the same vein, curious about Giulia being affected by the Gilbert device. Is she supernatural? Is she a Hunter? Will she turn? The answers to those questions – I shall not give you! Hahahahaha! Oh, and _Elena Hater_ , you are _so_ right in your review!

Just watching ' _What Lies Beneath_ ' in season five, and even though Caroline's completely justified and honest while she's telling off Elena for keeping the Stefan-killed-Enzo secret, somehow Elena manages to suggest that it _hurt_ that Caroline accused her and Stefan of being "make-out buddies" and Caroline loses _all_ momentum in her argument to start apologising to Elena – _WHAT_?! God I HATE Elena. Loving that Enzo snapped her neck in the previous episode! *Rant over.

* * *

 **Dangerous Beauty**

 _03_

 _All About the Setting_

* * *

After her conversation with Stefan over _boeuf bourguignon_ , Giulia had come to the unsettling realisation that once the shock of her transformation wore off, Caroline might undergo a long and destructive process of accepting that Giulia had _lied_ to her their entire lives. Jeremy accepted, understood, even, that Giulia had kept her own family's secret because it was just that – her own. No-one else, until Elena had stuck her nose in, had needed to be privy to the dark secrets that made the Boarding House even more so the creepiest house in Mystic Falls: even then, Giulia didn't believe Elena had ever had any right to demand Salvatore family-secrets. She _wasn't_ a Salvatore – and a tiny voice inside Giulia's head said, _And she never can be_.

But Caroline was different. She was Giulia's best-friend, the sister she had never had, the second part of her soul. She was _devastated_ Caroline had turned, but what could she do? She followed Caroline's lead, no matter how numbed her reaction might be, but Giulia knew her best-friend. Shakespeare had once said it was a wise father who knew his child: Giulia knew Caroline. If the others were worried Caroline would snap and pull a Ripper, that was their fear. Giulia knew better; Caroline was taking her newfound vampirism in stride, the way she always had everything else life threw at her. Her parents' divorce – her dad coming out – devastating milestones in Caroline's life, now her own death was something she had accepted wholeheartedly and was moving forward with that irrepressible enthusiasm Giulia so admired in her best-friend.

She was just waiting for the other shoe to drop – for the shock, if any lingered after their marathon talks about the reality of Giulia's life – now _Caroline's_ life too – to wear off. For Caroline to realise she was…upset with Giulia, angry, for keeping the secret, worse, _blame_ her for what had happened to her. As impartially as she could, Giulia had told Caroline the events that had culminated in her murder. Her transition. Once Giulia had explained the transition process, Caroline had been able to understand and appreciate what she had gone through; knowing about Bonnie not de-spelling the Gilbert device, she now understood – as much as any of them did – why Tyler had been affected, lost control of the wheel, putting her into the hospital. She was working through it, the same way they all were. Giulia was just more anxious than any of them that Caroline might turn to her one day, and tell her it was all her fault.

And Giulia couldn't handle that.

She worried that one day Caroline would come to resent her friendship with Giulia for what had happened to her because of it – she now remembered _everything_ about her 'relationship' with Damon that he had erased from her memory. The feeding, generally being a dick to her. But she'd been so forthright about reassuring Giulia that…sex with Damon had always been _way_ more than consensual on her part. In Caroline's words, "He _really_ knows what he's doing down there."

More than Giulia needed to know.

It might have been too many marshmallows but she'd had to stifle the reflex to vomit at that.

And if Giulia was anxious, Caroline woke up one morning and…started behaving strangely. The usually optimistic, chatty Caroline was _quiet_. It was unnerving, unnatural, and did nothing to soothe the knot of anxiety coiled in the pit of Giulia's stomach, dreading when Caroline might look at her with a stranger's eyes, accusing her of killing her.

It didn't help that Car was limited to the house during daylight – the promised heat-wave was ramping up, teasing them with incredibly fine mornings and clear blue skies, and rain in the evenings. Caroline was frustrated at having to stay indoors, annoyed by her skin burning every time she passed by an un-shuttered window, and with the frequency Matt was calling her even Giulia's nerves were stretching to their limit: she didn't understand how Caroline _hadn't_ called Matt to tell him off and screech at him to _stop calling her_. But she didn't.

He'd finally told Caroline he loved her.

That was a new development. The same night they had learned of Caroline's transition, Matt had told her how he felt – something she'd been _dying_ to hear for weeks. The irony was awful.

The evenings were still coming early – not as early as usual, but spring was coming, and seven a.m. saw the sun shining brightly, mist evaporating amongst the new buds of life. It was while they were cooped up indoors again – onto season five, with the glorious Logan Huntzburger, and Giulia's alter-ego, the eccentric Australian Finn – that Giulia, watching the lushiest trust-funders Emily could procure for a "Male Yale" party to introduce Rory to the _right_ kind of boys, sighed heavily. This wasn't enough.

It was Spring Break. Caroline was a new vampire. And Giulia knew witches, and wanted Caroline to learn the perks of being a vampire and not have to feel guilty about it. Caroline was a new vampire; the entire _world_ was open to her. There was nothing she couldn't do if she put her mind to it – the same held true for her even as a human, so in that regard little had changed for Caroline. But Giulia had noticed that becoming a vampire had helped Caroline shed that cotton padding of insecurity and self-doubt. Now she would be unstoppable – as long as nobody (and Giulia had several names on the tip of her tongue she had to bite back) made her feel bad about her personal evolution.

"So…what happens when Damon wakes up and finds us gone?" Caroline asked, breathing deeply the fragrant early-evening air; the sun was a dying red orb staining the entire skyline orangey-gold, vivid and entrancing, but the sky was already turning dark sapphire, a few stars glimmering, and they had a half-hour before dark descended completely. They could drive through the woods to the interstate without Caroline being endangered.

"Not much," Giulia shrugged, tugging the driver's door open. She handed Caroline a vintage silk scarf, securing a black elastic around her own head to keep her hair out of her face. She tossed her purse negligently in the backseat, and Caroline glanced at the clean leather seats before sliding into the passenger-seat. "When he finds his _Camaro_ gone…? Different story." Caroline laughed softly. It was the first time she'd really laughed all day, and Giulia didn't miss the hesitant look Caroline shot her way when she thought Giulia wasn't looking.

"Are you even gonna tell me where we're going?" Caroline asked, twisting in her seat to check the backs of the seats. "Do we need a map-book?"

"We'll wing it," Giulia shrugged. She knew where she was going, but last time Damon had driven them. The powder-blue _Camaro_ was a VIP pass to an underground parking-garage in the city and _Giulia_ knew where they needed to go. She didn't have a specific plan, only a vague inclination – she would see how things went. The engine rumbled sexily into life and Giulia smirked as she drove out of the garage, onto the road and away from the Boarding House. She'd permitted Caroline her cell-phone and that was it; if they ran into trouble along the way, Caroline would get a crash-course in perfecting the compulsion she had already learned to utilise the night she turned.

They blazed out of town as the sun gilded everything with a burning gold light, Giulia saw the way Caroline sighed and bit her lip at the sight of such a beautiful image: she fed the new CD Ashlyn had sent her in their latest goodie exchange into Damon's updated stereo, the debut album from Paloma Faith, and Caroline pulled an impressed face, already liking the music. Rarely did the two agree on musical tastes – Giulia loved classical or classic rock and punk; Caroline was addicted to MTV and had never heard of the majority of the most iconic musicians in the last fifty years. Damon's CD collection – since updating his collection from cassettes to CDs with a new stereo to match – spanned the breadth of the twentieth-century musical evolution, but like Giulia he was influenced mostly by classic rock, punk, big-band and classical, and it was tucked inside a huge 100-CD case in the trunk; Giulia had brought it out before they set off, and she had Caroline change the CD often enough that the music never got stale as they blazed up the i95.

"Why are we stopping? We're in the middle of nowhere," Caroline said, glancing around. It was fully night now, nine p.m. and street-lamps were humming as she pulled off the interstate toward a cluster of hotels, restaurants and gas-stations. She had stopped here with Damon when they had gone to New York after the ill-fated tomb-raid: the small diner just off the highway served the _best_ pies and chilli.

"I'm starving," Giulia groaned, stretching as she stood outside the car. She'd forgone a jacket and goose-bumps prickled her bare arms, having also left off a bra – she had stolen Damon's keys and grabbed Caroline's hand, pulling her to the garage before her thoughts had truly formed. She ran her fingers through her wind-tousled hair and yawned. " _You_ are going to go into that diner, order us a bunch of food, and we're gonna find somewhere pretty to eat it."

"Er…okay. You didn't give me time to grab my wallet – d'you have money?"

" _You_ have compulsion," Giulia said sternly, leaning her palms on the ledge of the door, arching an eyebrow down at Caroline. She had rolled the top down before they had left Mystic Falls, driving too fast in the dark with the music blazing and her best-friend, talking and laughing… She wished they could've done this ages ago. Caroline glanced uncertainly from Giulia to the diner, windows glowing warmly across the parking-lot. An expression of resolution, of self-confidence, suffused Caroline's face, warm and easy, and she climbed out of the car.

"Okay," she said, accepting the gauntlet Giulia had thrown down. "What do you want?"

"Cheeseburger – they do one with bacon and a huge onion-ring in it. And they do the best pies – there's Shoofly and this peanut-butter one, and they call this really good one 'Chocolate Crack' pie, and grab some chilli too," Giulia said. Caroline nodded, flipped her hair over the shoulders she held back confidently, and strode toward the diner. Giulia watched her, pride blossoming in her chest. It wasn't about getting the food for free.

It was about Caroline walking in there like she owned the place and having the confidence to order the food and walk away with it after _not_ paying. The conscientious girl in her, the well-brought-up Miss Mystic, would have balked at dining-and-dashing: and Giulia knew it wasn't outside a vampire's means to make financial investments. But still. One day Caroline might find herself without anything but her own resources. She'd rather Caroline exhausted the novelty of compulsion now, binging on burgers and probably a Fifth Avenue shopping-spree, than on high-schoolers who failed to tumble properly during cheer practice, or was seen talking to Matt a few too many times, as had happened when they'd gone to the small bonfire Tyler had hosted at the swimming-hole last night.

Stefan had started laughing at Caroline – "everyone _is at the swimming-hole having_ fun _and_ Matt _is there and he_ finally _told me that he_ loved _me, but_ I've _been blowing him off and now_ you _want me to eat_ bunnies _and I'm kinda freaking out, okay?!"_

 _It was the first time Giulia and Stefan had shared a laugh, catching each other's eye and trying to stifle their snickers. "And now you're laughing at me. Great."_

" _No, no," Stefan chuckled. "I'm not laughing – none of this is funny, trust me. It, uh, it's just that…"_

"What _?" Caroline snapped, frowning intensely at Stefan, hands on her hips and frustrated by the bunny-diet Stefan wanted to put her on._

" _When someone becomes a vampire, all their natural behaviour sort of gets, uh…amplified," Stefan said, barely able to control the smile lingering on his lips, as Giulia snorted and stuffed another potato-chip in her mouth as Caroline turned narrowed eyes on her._

" _What do you mean?" Giulia smirked at Stefan delightedly, challenging him to explain to Caroline tactfully what they were both realising. That Caroline as a_ vampire _was a very different handful to manage than the insecure human one._

" _Uh, as a human, I cared deeply for people, how they felt, if they were hurting I felt their pain, I felt guilty if I was the one who'd caused it," Stefan said, gesticulating and wincing slightly. "And…as a vampire, all that…got…magnified."_

" _So you're saying, that_ now _, I'm basically an insecure, neurotic control-freak – on_ crack _?"_

" _Well, I wasn't gonna say it…like that," Stefan winced, his eyes sparkling with humour. Caroline sighed to herself, shaking her head_.

Giulia sighed, leaning against the side of Damon's car, and started subtly when her phone started to vibrate deep inside her purse. She fished it out, quashing the feeling of annoyance and disappointment spreading through her stomach like ivy creeping around oak – she was disappointed because he had taken so long to call her back, annoyed that she had found herself _wishing_ she could talk to him at all. She glanced at the diner, where she could see the glimmer of Caroline's hair golden in the light by the counter, hand on her hip as she waited for her order.

"Hi," she said softly, trying to keep her tone level.

" _I just listened to your message_ ," Elijah said. Not _I didn't get your message_ ; he hadn't _listened_ to it. She was oddly charmed by the honesty but she sighed, watching Caroline through the diner windows.

"Cara says you've been recruiting," she said, instead of addressing what she'd said in the voicemail she had left Elijah. She had called him shortly after cleaning up Caroline in the disabled restroom at school, the night of the carnival. She was a little mortified, reflecting on what she must have sounded like in that message. And then she was too sad to be embarrassed.

" _Giulia_ …" he started, then sighed heavily. They both remained quiet for a moment, then Elijah said quietly, " _How is she handling the transformation_?"

Giulia watched Caroline, sadness and pride mingling together and making her eyes burn, "Like she was made for it."

" _And you_?"

"What else is there to do but embrace it wholeheartedly?" Giulia said, her voice dull even to her own ears. This wasn't the life she would ever have wanted for Caroline – she suited it, Car seemed to have a better handle on vampirism than she had on being a human teenager – but there were things that Caroline could _never_ have now that she was a vampire. And they were still too young to truly appreciate what those things were. She wasn't a child, she wasn't Claudia, but in the same vein, Caroline would never grow older, never die – never bear a child.

She had always wanted a little girl of her own.

" _You do not sound wholly enthusiastic_ ," Elijah said softly, his voice gentle and non-accusatory.

"I'm still in shock, maybe," Giulia said softly. "We all are. And she's taking it so well."

" _How did this occur_?" Giulia hesitated, but sighed and told Elijah everything, from what happened after they had stopped their sexting so she could deliver condolences to Mrs Lockwood and Tyler, to the _Gilmore Girls_ marathon and getting Caroline up to speed on the supernatural underworld of Mystic Falls.

"Now we're on the road," Giulia said, sighing. "I've stolen Damon's _Camaro_ and we're headed north."

" _A Lost Weekend_ ," Elijah said warmly.

"It's past time," Giulia said softly. She wished she could have told Caroline everything so much earlier on – if she had ever had to tell Caroline at all. But this was the way it had worked out, and for the moment Caroline was still talking to her despite everything.

" _Are you headed to the city_?" he asked, and Giulia smiled wanly; 'the city' could only reference one place. Just as 'Town' referred to London in all Austen novels, 'the city' was Manhattan for Elijah.

"Yes," Giulia said, glancing back at Caroline still waiting for their food. She didn't want to hurry the phone-call but she also…didn't want to share Elijah just yet – she didn't want to have to explain _all_ to Caroline. He was _hers_ , for now.

" _Have you acquired daylight-jewellery for Caroline yet_?" Elijah asked.

"No," Giulia said flatly, frowning at the thought of _Bonnie_. And given she had backhanded her granddaughter, Giulia didn't think Sheila would be up to spelling anything to help Caroline as a favour to Giulia. Sheila wasn't as hateful but she was more cautious about vampires, and she sat on the Council – to Damon's annoyance. She sighed heavily. "Does it have to be _lapis_?"

" _Unfortunately_ ," Elijah said. " _You're not the first woman to bemoan the choice of stone used in the original spell for daylight rings_."

"I suppose it's all about the setting," Giulia sighed. She smiled sadly to herself, remembering Elijah's glittering workshop in the Connecticut mansion. The mechanised starling, the eggs… "I know who to ask to do the spell, I just…wonder if _Van Cleef & Arpels _do anything with lapis lazuli. Car loves Lily van der Wooden's style." Elijah chuckled softly; given Ashlyn's taste for _Gossip Girl_ , he understood the reference.

" _Where do you intend to stay during your visit? That is assuming you plan to sleep_ ," Elijah said quietly.

"Well, I'm with a baby-vamp so it's best-behaviour Giulia," she sighed.

" _Best-behaviour Giulia? I think you mean best-behaviour for Giulia on a Lost Weekend with her best-friend Giulia_ ," Elijah said, and Giulia smiled warmly.

"Exactly," she said. "I'm going to call Cara and see if it's okay we crash at her house while we're in the city."

" _I'm sure she won't mind_ ," Elijah said. " _I shall have my housekeeper drop something by for you_."

" _Shall_ you?" Giulia said, teasing lightly. Always so proper – not _always_ , she reminded herself.

" _Yes_ ," Elijah said smilingly. " _It_ is _all about the setting, after all_."

Giulia smiled sadly to herself. " _Thank you_ ," she half-whispered.

" _I should have listened to your message days ago_ ," Elijah said quietly.

"You've been busy."

" _I should never have put you in the position you questioned whether I – I do not wish you to think that –_ "

"I know you care, Elijah," she said softly, sniffing and looking down at the ground, scuffing her boots. She stifled a yawn, suddenly very tired, eyes threatening to slide closed, her body achy. "You just have people you care about more, though… Besides, I got through it on my own." She glanced toward the diner, watching Caroline receive a tray of drinks, eyeing a waitress eagerly for the two bags of food she carried over from the kitchen.

As much as Giulia had wished she _could_ talk to Elijah that night – she didn't _need_ to. She was perfectly capable of pulling her own shit together. Depending on the mess it could take days, some things might take her _years_ to work through, but Giulia could do it without any help from anyone. Her father had raised her to be independent, and she was. "We're all going to get through it." She watched Caroline grin and strut confidently out of the diner. "Caroline's coming."

" _Enjoy your weekend, la Bella_ ," Elijah said softly, and she smiled to herself before ending the call.

"Who was that?" Caroline beamed, striding over laden with food. There was a bounce in her step and Caroline's smile was jaunty and self-satisfied when she reappeared, bearing a cardboard tray and two bags full of food.

"Your mom. Damon reported us," Giulia sniffed, tossing her phone into her purse in the backseat with a negligent shrug. "So – add grand-theft to your college application."

"Hey, it worked for Ryan Atwood," Caroline smirked, referencing her old-time favourite TV show back when _Juicy Couture_ sweat-suits, trucker hats and pukka-shells were all the rage (again).

"How'd you do?" Giulia asked, glancing at the bags and tray Caroline was balancing expertly.

"Piece of cake," she smirked, wedging all the food carefully on the backseat.

"Uh, I sent you in there for _pie_ ," Giulia said, giving her a remonstrating look as she tugged the driver's door open and climbed in. Caroline rolled her eyes.

"Where next?" Proud of Caroline, Giulia drove off, joining the i95 until they came to the turning off toward a small town very like Mystic Falls, with a gorgeous waterfall at the public park in the woods.

"Alright," Giulia said, grabbing one of the bags of food in one hand, wrapping her tongue around the straw of her milkshake as she adjusted it against her chest, trying to lock the car with the keys in the same hand, before managing to drop the keys into her purse, curl her hand around the milkshake, after taking another slurp, and, Caroline giggled, poised and waiting as she grappled with the other food and the metallic purple digital-camera her dad had given her for Christmas (Giulia had shoved it in her purse before they'd left Mystic Falls). "Ready! … _Steady_! Go!" She launched herself into mid-air, and Caroline, giggling giddily, managed somehow to catch Giulia – they both screamed as Giulia pitched forward, momentum threatening to throw her over Caroline's head as she bent at the waist, jiggling Giulia's weight on her back.

"Oh. You're not as heavy as I thought," Caroline mused, linking her arms under Giulia's knees as Giulia wriggled more comfortably onto Caroline's back, linking an arm around her neck. She narrowed her eyes at the side of Caroline's face, and nipped her ear. "OW! You _bit_ me?!" She laughed. "What? Eugh! Wait – smile!" She held the camera out in front of them at an angle, and Giulia was temporarily blinded as she sucked on her milkshake straw.

"Wonderful, that's gonna be very glamorous," Giulia said drily.

Caroline giggled. "So where are we going?"

"Through the woods, up the ravine, to the top of the waterfall," Giulia said.

"Okay, and how do I know where _that_ is?"

"Listen," Giulia said, sucking on her straw again. Caroline was having absolutely no problems carrying her piggy-back style, laden with food in the dark woods that would once have given her the creeps. "Listen for the rush of water where it's the loudest, and start running toward it."

"What if I run into a tree, or like a boulder or something?"

"Have you ever when you've been hunting with Stefan?"

Caroline sighed; she disliked the bunny-diet. "No."

"Well, then," Giulia shrugged. "Come on, my food's getting lukewarm."

"Okay," Caroline sighed, then she nodded, set her chin high and narrowed her eyes at the middle-distance shrewdly. Giulia heard her whisper, " _Rushing water_ …" And they were off – she had to cling on, laughing gleefully as they sped through the woods, dew-damp leaves whipping her face, the undergrowth exploding with scents as Caroline tore through it. They found the river, and Caroline zoomed up the rocky, near-vertical cliff-face, to the grassy outcrop at the very edge of the waterfall. Mist danced in the air and the sky opened up before them, a town glittering below, miles away. The stars glittered, the moon nearing full and Caroline let Giulia slide off her back to set their food down on the picnic-bench perched obscurely at the edge of the waterfall. The view was very pretty even in moonlight.

"Wow," Caroline breathed softly, tucking her hair away from her face to just gaze out. "It's really pretty." Giulia nodded, arranging their food on the bench, pulling several Altoids-tin heaters/mini-campfires and candles out of her purse. Unnatural white light from a camping-lantern would've killed the ambiance, and in the early-spring evening, there were nocturnal birds and smaller animals coming out, giving them a subtle background concert for their meal. "How did you know about this place?"

"Damon's brought me here, a couple of times," Giulia said, sipping the strong black coffee Caroline had got for her. Caroline turned away from the ledge to come and sit at the picnic-table with her, dusting off the seat first. "I think he might even have brought this table up here."

"So you do this kinda stuff with Damon?" Caroline asked. "Like, Lost Weekends?"

"We used to," Giulia said, starting on her burger, eyeing the large moth that came fluttering to the open flame a foot from her. Caroline, usually afraid of anything that fluttered in the dark, tilted her head, eyeing it curiously. Giulia wondered what she saw. "He'd blaze into town and _abscond_ with me – amusement-parks, gigs in the city, college parties, road-trips. Anything. After we got inside the tomb and realised Katherine wasn't in there, we went to New York."

"With that Romilly girl you said you let out of the tomb," Caroline added, remembering the details. Giulia nodded. "And _she's_ a friend of Vera and Cara's, your great-great…whatever-great aunts."

"Yep. Well, Carafina's my ancestress," Giulia added. "Our family-line goes back to _her_ in Rome in the 1490s, when she married into a noble family in the Papal States. Originally she and Vera are from Florence, and their direct lineage traces back to the 900s A.D."

"Wow," Caroline said softly. "So – why is _Damon_ your favourite? Is it just the whole Lost Weekends thing? I don't really see Stefan letting loose like that."

"Oh, he doesn't," Giulia assured her. "Well, no, that's not true. There's a reason Stefan survives off animal blood."

"Because he goes a little crazy?" Caroline asked, eating fry after fry after fry.

"Human blood to Stefan is like _crystal-meth_ to a human," Giulia said, sighing heavily. "He _can't_ feed off humans without turning into a Ripper."

"What's a Ripper?"

"The reason vampires have such a bad rep in pop-culture," Giulia said grimly. "Stefan in his Ripper phases will feed so hard, he'll black out – when he comes to, the person he's fed on is in pieces. He'll feel a great tsunami of remorse and try to put the pieces back together – but it's still a drug in that he'll do anything _not_ to come off it while he's 'using'." Caroline looked shocked.

"He's killed people?" she half-whispered. Giulia nodded, eating an onion-ring.

"Stefan's body-count is _exponentially_ larger than Damon's. If Stefan's on one of his Ripper benders – _and_ he's shut off his emotions – he'll leave a trial of dismembered bodies for years… In 1917 he slaughtered an entire community of migrant workers in Monterrey," Giulia said, and Caroline's eyes widened. "Other vampires still know him by the moniker 'Ripper of Monterrey' today. He didn't do it for _sport_ , he – _if_ he's in touch with his emotions, Stefan _will_ struggle with what he's doing; he won't torment people for his own amusement. But if he's shut his emotions off because he doesn't want to feel the pain, the remorse for killing all those people so horrifically, then…he is exponentially more dangerous than Damon has ever been. It's – Jekyll and Hyde. And Stefan hates it, that's why he tries so hard to be _this_ Stefan, the one we all know, the one he only ever wants Elena to see. Because he's proud of being that considerate, conscientious person, the good boyfriend, the guy you can rely on. And he hates the Ripper, until he _is_ the Ripper."

"So… Damon's better, then? A better vampire, I mean?"

Giulia shook her head, "They're both fucked-up." She sighed, dunking fries into a polystyrene cup of chilli. "Stefan struggles _eternally_ with his Ripper alter-ego, the urge to drink human-blood… In his way Damon's always tried to help Stefan face his issues, but it never goes the way he expects; and Damon's got his own issues, he…sometimes he _misses_ being human and the only thing he can do is lash out. So he does… And who's to stop him? Half the stuff he's pulled in Mystic Falls recently though, that's mostly all been about pushing Stefan's buttons. It's their own brother-drama, but like a hurricane debris gets drawn into it, swept up for a while and discarded." She glanced down at the slice of pie she was eating – they'd even put whipped-cream on each slice – and had to struggle to swallow as thoughts of her dad rose up, unbidden, biting her tongue from saying _, It's what got my dad killed_. Zach had gotten involved in the eternal Salvatore-brother feud and paid the price for meddling.

"Because Stefan made Damon turn, after he thought Katherine was dead," Caroline said, and Giulia nodded. She sighed, eyeing the slices of pie Caroline had acquired.

"I think…back then, after Stefan forced him to, Damon realised how much he _didn't_ want to turn," Giulia said softly. Damon's feelings about turning back in 1864 had always been a no-go zone, even at their most drunk. But with Stefan's recent Ripper-detox and his anguish about Katherine, getting Damon killed, killing his father, a lot of things had aired out that Damon and Stefan had both been keeping to themselves for far too long. Caroline frowned.

"But Damon's like…a great vampire," she said, tilting her head to the side. "Not a _good_ one, I don't mean that, but he's like…a _real_ vampire. He feeds on people without killing them, he knows how to compel people _brilliantly_."

"Well, he enjoys it," Giulia said fairly. "Stefan struggles; but Damon doesn't. He knows who and _what_ he is. And he wouldn't give it back." Caroline chewed a mouthful of burger, swallowed, and sighed, reaching for her own milky, sugary coffee. Caroline was usually a strict _Starbucks_ hazelnut latté girl with extra foam and two sugars; it was Giulia who slung back the tar. But she had to get used to drinking the strong stuff if she didn't want people gasping at how cold her touch was.

"So…who do you think…?"

"Caroline?"

"Who do you think…is a better vampire-mentor?" Caroline asked uncomfortably. "I mean, I know you don't like me going out hunting with Stefan…"

"Caroline. You're seventeen, you've gotten through – almost – all of high-school without having an eating-disorder. I won't allow Stefan to give you one now: I'd rather you learned how to feed properly and _moderately_ rather than binge like he does, that's far more dangerous for everyone – and since I'm your best-friend and I'm human and _delicious_ , well…" Caroline scoffed, laughing, her eyes sparkling in the firelight. She offered Giulia one of the slices of pie. "I think half Stefan's efforts with you stem from his own issues, you know. He's trying to remind you of your humanity, being considerate, not abusing your powers because he has forgotten at times…"

"So…you're not worried I'll crack and go on a murder-binge through town?" Caroline asked, frowning earnestly at her. Giulia shot her the look that anxiety deserved.

"Never," she said honestly. "I know you. You're my best-friend. You've already shown more composure as a vampire than you usually did as a human." She glanced at Caroline, searching her face for hints of blame, anger, the warning Giulia should abandon the subject – or the hurt, that Giulia had wounded Caroline's feelings; she found none. She licked her lips, eyed her pie, and said, "I think being a vampire suits you."

"You do?" Caroline said, her voice catching slightly. Giulia shrugged, frowning.

"And – I'd just like you to learn from Damon how to _enjoy_ being a vampire," she said honestly. "I don't want you to be _ashamed_ of yourself for eternity." Caroline sighed softly, swirling her straw around her milkshake cup.

"So Stefan's killed people as well," she finally said, very softly.

"Oh, his list of victims is a _long_ one – a couple years' of it is inscribed on the booze-cellar wall in his apartment in Chicago," Giulia said, and Caroline's eyebrows rose slightly. "Look, none of us has clean records – my tally is over three-dozen." Giulia's eyes popped.

"What?"

"There were the twenty-four vampires in the tomb," Giulia said, helping herself to some of the lime slushie Caroline had ordered and now turned her nose up at. "And the half-dozen vampires I killed who tortured Stefan for info on Katherine."

"When was Stefan tortured?"

"Did I not tell you about that?"

"Um – _no_ ," Caroline pulled a face. So Giulia told her about the morning Stefan went missing – the student-teacher wonder-duo Ric Helsing and Giulia tearing their way through half the nest of very pissed off old vampires. Caroline stared at her, her face becoming paler, eyes wider, as Giulia recounted – probably a little too graphically – how she had killed each vampire separating her from Stefan. Caroline got this look on her face, this stern frown, eyes sharp and cutting through bullshit, the more Giulia said.

"So… Damon killed your dad after _Stefan_ drugged him because he was protecting Elena. You spend months spiralling and just generally abusing your body with alcohol and parties and drugs –"

"And boys."

Caroline pursed her lips, narrowing her eyes, "They _ignore_ you, put you in danger, they don't even care that you moved _out_ or that you disappeared for _two weeks_ over Winter Break, they don't _care_ , and yet, you helped Damon get into the tomb so he could rescue Katherine. You blame him for your dad's death but you _killed_ a half-dozen vampires to rescue _Stefan_." Giulia ruminated on that conclusion for a moment over sips of black coffee, cooling swiftly.

"That's about it," she shrugged.

"Well that's not _right_ ," Caroline snapped, looking vehement. " _Why_ are you letting them walk all over you? You did that with Tyler and look where it got you."

Giulia stared, surprised. "Different situations, Car, and you know it," she said.

"They ignore you but the second they need help, you don't even hesitate," Caroline frowned.

"They're my family," Giulia sighed, feeling defeated. She shrugged.

"That is _so_ messed up," Caroline declared, pursing her lips. " _They_ are out of line… So is this why you go on your Lost Weekends? D'you hope they'll notice?"

"No," Giulia said, half-laughing. She smirked, sipping her milkshake. "Fact is, Damon was only ever the diabolical vampire-godfather who taught me how to party – he was never a _parent_. And I have little respect for Stefan considering his hypocrisy, condemning Damon. And he looks younger than _me_. Beyond that, they only ever came for short visits… This is the longest they've ever stayed in town, and they've never _integrated_ before. My Lost Weekends were because they were _fun_ , I got to enjoy myself with new people who didn't just…know me, the old me…"

"You mean they don't hold you back from doing things _you_ want to do like I do," Caroline said, and Giulia stared at her. Her gaze was earnest and perceptive. "I know you think I see you in a certain way and get disappointed when you don't live up to my expectations – but you don't; you exceed them, all the time… I just – there are so many things I haven't felt comfortable even talking to you about because the situation – even before I knew about all this vampire stuff – was so awkward, I just couldn't even do it."

"Well, I bit my tongue too," Giulia said quietly.

"No _duh_. There's a reason you _explode_ when no-one expects it, you keep everything buried so deep under the surface!" Caroline blurted. "I mean, smacking _Bonnie_?! …I guess I understand now, why things got so bad. Now that I know it all I can see why you were acting the way you were… I just – you're letting them push you out of your own life!"

"I removed myself from a toxic situation," Giulia corrected her. "It's not forever – they can't _stay_ forever, not without effort. And I thought you supported my moving out."

"Look, I do, okay, I do, it's just – knowing everything like I do now, it's just so much more screwed up," Caroline declared, resting her forearms on the table in front of her, her posture relaxed. "It's a good idea that you moved out but it's _not_ okay that they don't even know that you did."

"Well…whatever."

"Don't do that – don't just roll over."

"I'm not – I'm choosing my battles."

"What happened? When Damon came to town you were _giddy_ to spend time with him. You – tolerated – having Stefan hang out with us. What changed – besides the obvious," Caroline added hastily.

"'The obvious' isn't reason enough for us to drift apart like tectonic plates that cause a tsunami?" Caroline sighed, arching an eyebrow at her.

"What happened?" she asked, and when Giulia gave her a significant look, Caroline fiddled with the end of the wrapper the waitress had tucked on the straw for her lime slushie. She flicked her glance up as Giulia sipped her coffee, and said quietly but confidently, "Elena?"

"Like I said, I pick my battles," Giulia said drily, sniffing. "And bide my time; ten years down the line, Stefan will be gone, she'll be fat and saggy." Caroline blurted a laugh, blushing with embarrassment at laughing at Elena's expense. "I'll be in my prime, tearing through the world with you!" Caroline's smile started out tiny and embarrassed at laughing at Elena, growing to a glittery-eyed grin as she realised the implications of what her life might look like ten years on. She sighed, though.

"Don't pretend it doesn't bother you that Damon's mooning over Elena," she said gently.

"Actually, I've been perfectly verbal to Damon about my opinion on his taking a liking for sloppy seconds," Giulia said, taking a long draw on the soda Caroline had got for her. She frowned, realising between the two of them they had about eight drinks and enough food for a family of five. And no leftovers in sight. "She is emotionally manipulative and intellectually inferior."

"He really is _smart_ , huh?!" Caroline blurted, setting down her own coffee cup, tilting her head to one side thoughtfully. "I noticed that when we were – whatever we were." She rolled her eyes impatiently.

"Mm-hmm. Although smart doesn't mean wise," Giulia sighed. "You'd think he'd avoid repeating history, given how it's treated him."

"Thank you for getting me out of town, by the way," Caroline suddenly blurted, giving her a dazzling smile. Giulia frowned, sensing something was wrong.

"Caroline. What aren't you telling me?"

Caroline hesitated, but eventually her shoulders slumped and she sighed. "When…I went back to my house the other night for dinner with my mom – Katherine was there… And I'm _so_ scared of her, Giulia."

Giulia's entire body sizzled with the power of her anger, and maybe her face looked as murderous as she felt, because Caroline's eyes widened. "Caroline. She killed you. Now, who are you more afraid of, _her_ , or _me_ , for her killing you?" Caroline's smile was tremulous, but it warmed up.

"Fair point," she said, though her expression became troubled as she swept her navy eyes over Giulia's face.

"You leave that little whore to me," Giulia said, finishing her milkshake. She sniffed, glancing up at Caroline and asking succinctly, "What'd she ask you to do?"

"Spy on Stefan and Elena," Caroline bit out, wincing. "She doesn't want them together." And not for the usual selfish reasons of Katerina being incapable of sharing her toys – if Stefan was out of the way, if she managed to push the Salvatore brothers out of town, that left the doppelganger wide open and ready for the plucking.

"Well, neither do I," Giulia said unconcernedly. "But I haven't yet resorted to murder. Okay – that _much_. Seriously, don't worry about her."

"She threatened _you_ , Giulia," Caroline said, after a moment's quiet. Giulia glanced up, blinking bemusedly.

" _Me_? We haven't even been introduced and she's plotting my assassination? Rude. And foolish," she sniffed unconcernedly. She glanced up at Caroline, who still looked uncomfortable. "Well – seems she's observant enough to realise she can try to use _us_ against each other as leverage. Wasted opportunity, though, with killing you. If I was her I'd have tried to use you to leverage _me_ – so either she's just not that clever–"

"Or she doesn't realise just how dangerous you are," Caroline said, her voice low and earnest, and Giulia gave her a gentle smile, oddly flattered that Caroline had come to that conclusion. "Aren't you worried?" Giulia shook her head. She was in a unique position – she knew _exactly_ what Katherine was in town for, exactly what she was after – exactly what she'd do to get Elena isolated. After a minute, Caroline asked, "So, what next?"

* * *

 **A.N.** : Hello, lovelies! So, a _few_ issues cleared up – and we start to see the emergence of the new and improved Caroline! I love her, I really do. Best female character on TVD by _galaxies_. I like the way Giuline's relationship is maturing, it's must more equal, I think. They're now both such strong characters, Caroline actually has a shot of being as supportive of Giulia as Giulia so obviously is of her.


	4. Lapis Lazuli

**A.N.** : So, I've been thinking – Kendall Jenner is a huge inspiration for me writing Giulia, fashion-wise (at least while she's a teenager); but check out my aptly-named 'Giulia Salvatore' board on _Pinterest_ for more inspiration.

So, had no clue Candice Accola has a bun in the oven. Don't know why everyone keeps asking what kind of parents "Stefan and Caroline" would be, if they write the bump into the show – _blurgh_! It's all about Enzine for me. Hell, I can even see Damon being a doting daddy figure – calling Caroline's baby "sweet-pea" and "baby vamp" and opening up opportunities for people to call it "Rosemary's Baby" if it was ever Damon's kid (although technically the nickname would be far more apt for Hayley/Klaus' baby!)

* * *

 **Dangerous Beauty**

 _04_

 _Lapis Lazuli_

* * *

"It's grungy and disgusting," Caroline said, raising her voice over the music. A live act – a god-awful metal din – replaced the Stevie Wonder they had driven into the city playing; the echoing silence of the underground parking garage beneath the club had made Giulia's ears ring as the Camaro had lurched to a stop, wiggling the gear-stick into neutral. After driving just over five hours, it was pushing one a.m., and they had entered the city with music blazing, the wind whipping their hair, laughing, and Caroline awed by the glittering skyline as the sky-scrapers rose from obscurity.

She'd had Caroline flash her fangs to the bouncer and he'd promptly let them skip the line to get in – the club was heaving with people, sweaty bodies, the scent of beer pervasive, a melange of different perfumes, shouts of laughter, the subtle whine of a badly-tuned speaker, flashes of light from photographers, flashes of glowing light through colourful shots and Giulia laughed. The energy was astonishing; it was a Battle of the Bands, four local bands competing for $1,000, some recording hours at a local studio and press opportunities, and they had only missed the first act. The second was this awful metal _mess_ and Giulia grabbed hold of Caroline's hand to pull the conspicuously out-of-her-element cheerleader toward the bar.

"It's _Billy's_ ," Giulia grinned, glancing over her shoulder as Caroline bit her thumb-nail uncertainly. This definitely wasn't her scene. She was a Katy Perry girl. "During the Seventies this was the underground of the Underground! Damon had his humanity turned off then – you know the Son of Sam murders? All Damon. This is where he partied and fed and watched the best underground punk bands of the Seventies perform." She grinned, shouldering her way through the crowd at the bar, and grinned at Billy. He did a double-take, his face breaking into a smile, and he reached over the bar to give her a hug.

"Hey, Giulia," he beamed.

"Hi, Billy," she smiled. "Billy, Caroline." She introduced Car with an enigmatic wave of her hand.

"Get you something to drink?"

"Yes – and something _harder_ for my sexy blonde BFF."

"She's a newbie?" Billy asked, nearly shouting over the music, and Giulia nodded, smirking playfully.

"She's only a few days old," she said back.

"Just take it in the back, give 'em some of your blood before you compel 'em," Billy said, leaving Caroline looking a little stunned, like he'd skipped a step.

"She hasn't tried snatch-eat-erase yet," Giulia told Billy.

"Well, my club is your playground," Billy grinned warmly. "Anything for a friend of Giulia's. How's Damon?" He turned to Giulia. "Still in Mystic Falls?" Giulia nodded. "Still causing trouble, huh."

"Less so, now; new old player in town," Giulia said enigmatically, and Billy pulled a face, shrugging, and set two neat bourbon double-shots on the bar in front of her.

"Is that Damon?" Caroline asked suddenly, pointing to something on the wall behind Billy. The entire wall was papered with photographs – old pictures, posters, Polaroids, promotional concert posters, dating back to the 1970s – and, yes, Giulia followed Caroline's gaze and laughed out loud at the photograph tacked almost in pride of place, one of the largest black-and-white photographs framed neatly in a plain, thin black frame. There was Damon, in all his irreverent, 1970s punk glory. Rad leather jacket, the tousled hair, artfully rumpled t-shirt, tight jeans. Standing with his arms slung around Billy, and a _gorgeous_ guy with the kind of shining Andy Gibb hair Caroline had always been jealous of. Despite the monochrome picture, he could only be a blonde, and he was beautiful. Frowning, Giulia filed the photograph away, sure she had seen that face in a picture in Damon's sole footlocker of memories he cared to keep.

"Look at that hair!" Caroline laughed, pulling out her phone. She zoomed in on the photograph, taking a picture on her phone. "Oh, I'm _so_ gonna torture him about that."

"You should've seen Stefan's _Eighties_ hair," Giulia said, smirking.

"No!" Caroline gasped, then laughed.

"Hey, who's the gorgeous blonde?" Giulia asked Billy, still leaning against the bar with his ratty dishtowel, smirking reminiscently at the photograph on the wall.

"You've seen _Princess Bride_ , right?" Billy grinned easily. "Call me Dread Pirate Roberts." He pointed at the photograph. " _That_ is Billy – or Willem. One of the first." Giulia glanced back at the photograph.

"He's an Original?" she said, stunned.

"Yeah. He took off four months after that picture was taken," Billy said, sighing. "Bangkok, he said. Whether he went there is a different story. But he gave me the name, and the club." Giulia stared at the photograph. An Original, right under her nose for months. She hadn't been paying attention the first time Damon brought her to Billy's but she remembered being told there were _possibly_ three, more likely only two Originals walking the earth nowadays. Cara had told her that of all the Originals, the one she had never met, the one shrouded in mystery and the mists of time, a distant memory, almost a legend to his own siblings, was _Willem_.

Immediately upon looking at him in that photograph, Giulia didn't see Elijah. Blonde hair, and his features were almost…his broad high cheekbones were almost Native American – but he had a beautiful strong jawline and straight nose, and there was something about his mouth, the shape of his eyes, crinkles at the corners of them, that reminded Giulia of Elijah. This was one of his fabled brothers. Willem.

"Surprised Damon never mentioned him," Billy chuckled, shaking his head. "They wrote the book on _bromances_." Giulia raised her eyebrows; Damon had a _bromance_? Reflecting on the emerging frenemy-bond he was nurturing with Ric, it wasn't a surprising thought, and then there was the ghost of the prisoner Enzo too. Stefan was the good boy but it was Damon who made great friends with strong bonds.

"I didn't even think Damon had _friends_ ," Caroline sniffed, frowning dubiously at her bourbon. She glanced sceptically at Giulia, who downed hers in one, raised her eyebrow at Caroline, and placed the glass on the bar, where Billy refilled it. Called away by other patrons, he left Giulia with the half-full bottle; she kept refilling Caroline's glass – mostly so she didn't drink it all herself – and they turned to watch final act competing in the Battle of the Bands. An all-female group in victory-curls and smirks climbed on, plugging their instruments in – and raised the roof. They were _insanely_ talented and Giulia filmed them on her phone as much as she could, and on Caroline's camera. The two guitarists were extraordinary. They whipped the crowd into a frenzy, and the atmosphere, the energy in the club while they played was staggering – even Caroline was infected by it, grinning and applauding, screaming her support.

Giulia got their band's name, the location of the record shop where their _vinyl_ was sold exclusively, and, downing her bourbon, Giulia laughed raucously and had to peel a giddy Caroline away from a handsome guy by the bar; she drew Caroline out onto the street, and they started walking. Caroline had never been to New York and Giulia would be damned if they wasted one minute of their time together in Manhattan. She plugged a dual-headphone jack into her iPod and, holding hands and skipping, they laughed and sang along to Giulia's favourite new Playlist, dancing their way down the streets, unselfconscious and giddy, Caroline becoming more enthusiastic, letting loose much more, relaxing, having _fun_ , singing along to Old Blue Eyes, Stevie Wonder, Christina Aguilera's _Burlesque_ soundtrack, giggling loudly Giulia whooped, her favourite song in the entire world, _Let's Spend the Night Together_ by The Rolling Stones, playing – " _No, no, no – we gotta dance_!" Caroline declared excitedly; she was a manic drunk, Giulia _loved it_! She gurgled a laugh, glancing around, and grabbed Caroline's hand, giggling as they ducked behind a bouncer arguing with two guys, into a dark club, winding the earphones around her iPod and tucking it into her purse. Several drinks bought for them later, they tottered out into the brisk cold of three a.m., the leftover sludge of a New York spring crunching underfoot as cabs zoomed past, and Caroline laughed delightedly, skipping ahead with bare arms as Giulia's teeth chattered and goose-bumps rose violently on her skin.

"Where next?" Caroline giggled.

"Mm – oh _no_!" Giulia groaned, as Caroline gasped in delight, grabbed her hand, and half-ran toward another bar – where a karaoke competition was in full swing. She groaned; Caroline _loved_ karaoke. And Giulia was the terror who always submitted songs on her behalf, forcing Caroline to get up in front of people and _sing_ and actually show people just how astonishing her voice was – even as Giulia descended into tears of giggles, while Caroline shot her the finger and performed "Thong Song".

She also submitted a song to perform herself; she dedicated it to Caroline, and their weekend: Wayne Newton's "Danke Schoen". _Ferris Bueller_ had had a very big impact on Giulia when she was twelve. It was one of her dad's favourite films; he'd seen it in the theatre with his brother Joshua when they were young teenagers. And it was in homage to the tone of this entire trip. Best-friends relishing the delights of one of the greatest cities in the world, together, no rules. Just their daring, their imagination. And, like Ferris, Giulia had known what she was doing when she woke up this morning.

Now it was getting late, and Giulia was half-dozing by the time Caroline jumped down off the stage, hair shimmering in the multi-coloured strobe lights, and handed her a sweating bottle of ice-water.

"Okay, what now?" she asked, as Giulia twisted the cap open, yawning. Without the aid of alcohol, Giulia's endurance was suffering: but she was determined this wasn't about getting drunk, she didn't _want_ to drink. She was enjoying herself with Caroline, in a very real, _free_ , intimate way they'd not really done before. Something had changed: Caroline had made the leap into this part of Giulia's life that she had always kept entirely separate. This new Caroline, the more self-assured, discerning Caroline, fit there, where the neurotic, easily-deflated Car would have disappeared into the shadows, downtrodden by her own insecurities.

"Mm. I know," Giulia said, smiling. She had received a text from Elijah confirming he'd left something for her at Cara's. She had a little cash, so she paid for a cab to Cara's street – rather than get the Camaro out of the private garage beneath _Billy's_ – and they clambered out into the snow-strewn street, the ivy-covered Victorian townhouse beautiful and incongruous, lamps glowing outside the sand-coloured stoop. Giulia let them in, having been told via text by Cara to just pick the front-door lock to let themselves in; the housekeeper would be in at seven a.m. if they needed anything. Elijah had also sent her a message; his own housekeeper had delivered a parcel for Giulia.

"So…who lives here?" Caroline half-whispered, awed by the _Gossip Girl_ -esque beauty of the foyer. It was very Edith Wharton, Giulia mused as she retrieved the black velvet case on the side-table Elijah had said to look for, if one stayed in said foyer. Upstairs was a different story. The jalapeno pepper fairy-lights, the shrine to Barry Gibb…

"This is Cara's house," she explained, as the housekeeper went to retrieve the parcel Elijah's housekeeper had brought by earlier, she said. "She lives here with Ashlyn."

"Oh," Caroline nodded. "So, they like know we're breaking in to crash here?"

"First of all, Cara said I should pick the lock, there's a spare key she _thinks_ in her child-proofed armoire," Giulia said, grimacing in amusement. The armoire was full of Carafina's Lenten contraband. "And they're in Cancun so it doesn't really matter either way. Just as long as we don't touch the Patrick Swayze photograph we're okay. She has encouraged any and all theft, graffiti, and pranks."

"She seems like a handful," Caroline said, still gazing around the foyer, as Giulia tucked the black velvet case under her arm. Giulia curled her finger at Caroline, who followed her up the stairs; the guest-bedroom was outfitted as Cara had hinted, with a dresser full of never-worn pyjamas in funky patterns, onesies and fluffy socks, face-masks and night-cream, soft microwaveable curlers, and mounds of blankets over the eiderdown and Egyptian cotton sheets, an entire wall dedicated in a very Digger Stiles way, to pop-culture: books, movies, bobble-head dolls with rude bits stuck on, at least seven lava and glitter lamps, a gumball machine in the corner, and hanging from the ceiling in place of a central light fixture? A disco ball.

Giulia pulled her combat-boots off, stripped out of her clothes and wiggled into a fluffy bear onesie, tied her hair up into two sloppy buns and climbed under the covers, setting her alarm. She needed to get her contact before they wasted the day, and they had a couple of hours to nap. She set the black velvet case on the bedside cabinet as Caroline, hair pulled into a ponytail, self-conscious in the borrowed, brand-new pyjamas, arranged her fluffed-up pillows (Giulia had given Car hers, she disliked pillows) and climbed into bed beside her.

* * *

"Did you get any REM, sweets?" Giulia asked, four hours later, her shower having woken Caroline, who was stretching and preening like a kitten.

"This bed is gorgeous," she mumbled, yawning. She sniffed, frowning, looking bleary-eyed and tired. "Is there a toothbrush I can borrow, do you know?"

"Only pink glitter ones," Giulia said grimly. She smiled brightly, "You have to take care of those dainty lady-vamp fangs." Downstairs she used Cara's hyper-expensive and glorious espresso machine to make coffees, and dressed in a borrowed top and her jeans, Giulia sat in the drawing-room where during her first Lost Weekend with Cara, Ashlyn &c, Elijah had happened upon her during a slight, completely internalised, meltdown.

Opening the black velvet case, Giulia sighed to herself, smiling. _It's all about the setting_ , she thought, warmth spreading through her entire body, joy and gratitude at such kindness. He hadn't even met Caroline. And yet he had offered her choice in jewels set with lapis lazuli stones, all, Giulia believed, designed by Elijah himself. There were earrings and studs, pendants, tennis-bracelets, and rings, the settings ranging from the simplest solitaires, intricate filigree Art Nouveau, striking Art Deco halos, ultra-minimalist bands, every one of them unique, stunning, some with quirky details like two tiny birds and a filigree nest set with tiny lapis lazuli eggs, statement rings, ultra-modern, and with Egyptian vibes, settings like flowers, a gorgeous gold band in the richest gold, almost reddish, designed as an ouroboros with tiny lapis stones set in the eyes. He had used precious metals as well as stones – opals, diamonds, onyx – to offset the lustreless _lapis lazuli_ , outshining that necessary aspect of the spell.

"Pretty," Caroline breathed, teasing her fingers through her freshly-tonged curls with one hand as she kept her cell-phone to her ear with the other; she leaned down to press a kiss to Giulia's head before sliding onto a stool beside her at the island; Giulia pushed a cup of strong coffee – loaded with creamer, hazelnut syrup and sugar – toward her.

"Who is it?" she mouthed, and Caroline mouthed back, "My mom." Giulia nodded, and Caroline eyed the rings delightedly, and Giulia rolled her eyes in amusement as Caroline plucked out the jewellery Giulia had seen and known she would like out of the black velvet case to examine closer as she chatted with her mother.

"Dinner – um? Tomorrow night?" Caroline said, grimacing inquisitively at Giulia, who shook her head, frowning. "I can't do tomorrow, Giulia has a lot planned for us. Maybe…" She glanced at Giulia again, who pushed out her lower-lip thoughtfully, frowning, and mouthed, "Tuesday." "Tuesday night? Dinner at the Grill? Okay. Okay. I love you. Bye." Caroline hung up the phone and raised an eyebrow at Giulia.

"So what're we doing today?" she asked, smiling warmly.

"Well, first, you have to pick something," Giulia said, pushing the velvet case toward Caroline, who raised her eyebrows.

"What? Just pick one? This case was just lying in the foyer, it doesn't belong to you," Caroline blurted.

"It was delivered to the house specifically for _you_ , actually," Giulia said, smiling. "Pick one."

"Okay…why?" Caroline asked.

"They all have lapis lazuli stones in the settings," Giulia said, picking out a tennis bracelet for Caroline to examine.

"Lapis – oh. That's the stuff in Stefan and Damon's rings," Caroline nodded.

"It's necessary for the spell to create daylight-jewellery," Giulia sighed. "It's just a shame the stone isn't prettier. What about this one? Lapiz lazuli set into an _eternity_ -ring. Some irony there, one thinks." Caroline chuckled. "Actually, you know what – I'd rather we took advantage of the generosity and got you fully kitted out."

"Okay…what do you mean?"

"You're a girl who _accessorises_ ," Giulia said, perusing the velvet case. "And, besides that, I think it's quite daring for the boys to risk only having the _one_ ring – if someone destroyed it that's a lot of witch strong-arming before they can go out in daylight again."

"Okay, so what?" Caroline said, glancing at the jewellery. "What do I pick out?"

"Necklace. Two rings. Hey, this can go on your charm bracelet," she smiled, at the delicate little filigree-inlaid lapis lazuli egg drop. "So you can switch things up, and you've always got spares just in case."

"Okay," Caroline said, though she looked uncomfortable about taking more than what she thought had been offered. If Elijah ever met Caroline, though, Giulia believed he wouldn't mind that Giulia had taken extra precaution protecting her. Maybe he already knew enough _of_ her from Giulia that he didn't mind: after all, instead of just giving Caroline something of his choosing, he had given her the choice. "Okay, so… I'm gonna be wearing this for the _rest_ of my life. What do I choose?"

"I'd choose something simple and subtle," Giulia said. A delicate heart-shaped silver locket caught her eye, no larger than her thumbnail, detailed with delicate swirls and either a daisy or a sunflower – it was so evocative of Caroline's sunny personality that she lifted it carefully from the box. The locket opened – unwillingly – to reveal a tiny lapis stone nearly entirely encased within a silver bracket. "What about this?"

"That is _so cute_!" Caroline gasped, latching onto it with near vamp-speed. "Oh my gosh." She grinned jauntily. "It's perfect."

"Now, a ring," Giulia admonished, and after trying on handfuls of them – Art Deco 'halo' rings, filigree ones, an ultra-modern one – Caroline decided on the eternity band Giulia had picked out, a rich 24-karat gold channel setting with tiny alternating lapis lazuli stones, turquoise, diamond and apatite. "I can wear this with any kind of blue, it's perfect." A single lapis lazuli stud for Caroline's second piercing, and the tiny egg charm, and Giulia closed the box, set it on the leather-topped desk in Cara's office, grabbed her bag, and tried to lead Caroline out of the house by the hand.

"No – Giulia – the sun!"

"It's overcast," Giulia said, opening the door and indicating the sky. "Besides, this is New York; your chances of getting direct sunlight are slim. Be bold!"

"Alright, but if I burn to a crisp, _you're_ explaining everything to my mom," Caroline warned, but she did brave the streets. New York in early-April was like Mystic Falls in the heart of their "winter"; snow was melting everywhere, churned up by traffic into toxic greyish sludge, bright but overcast, the sky a blanket of illuminated cloud, indirect wintry light. She grabbed Caroline's hand and pulled her into the subway – Caroline's expression of disdain as she attempted to navigate the subway gracefully was classic! – and they emerged close to Elijah's ballroom, and the indoor mall full of witch shops. Giulia stopped them by the small independent café with the gorgeous fully-bodied espresso and phenomenal pastries, and they sat in the warmth by the window in a snug little corner, Caroline texting people and flicking through _Vogue_ and Giulia unfolding the _Arts & Leisure_ section of the day's newspaper.

"So, why aren't we asking Bonnie to do this?" Caroline asked, referring to the daylight jewellery, frowning slightly at Giulia, whose answer was to scoff.

"Because I don't trust her," she said, with a bite of finality that shocked Caroline. Giulia glanced at her with a shrug, then laughed, "I don't know where she gets off being such a hateful little bitch, if she's still pissed at Damon for attacking her as Emily, she needs to get over it. But the irony of a _black witch_ being so racist to a vampire who was in her _life_ one of her best-friends, is _delicious_ to me. And just cements the opinion I've had of her for a long time that she's small-minded and bitter."

"Bonnie's not that bad – a little judgemental, maybe," Caroline said fairly, and Giulia gazed at her sadly; even after everything, she was still sticking up for someone who had treated her so poorly.

"Caroline… She cared more about a dead carnie than the fact _you_ were murdered," she said gently. "Disregarding the vampire thing entirely, you _were_ killed as a direct consequence of her actions. And she refused to even acknowledge her part in it. That isn't okay. I won't forgive that. I won't _forget_ that when you really needed us, she failed you. She failed us." Caroline sighed, and Giulia shrugged her shoulder again. "I'm not going to say you shouldn't try with her, if that's what you want – but with everything I have going on, I don't want to spend time with someone who makes me feel _less_ for being around her. I just…don't feel like myself when I have to spend time with them."

"Bonnie and Elena?" Caroline said, and Giulia sighed, nodding.

"I mean, you could pull it up to simple jealousy in Elena's case –"

"But the _situation_ isn't simple," Caroline interjected gently, understanding written on her face, and Giulia nodded. "And there's no way _you_ could ever be jealous of someone like Elena." Surprised by Caroline's comment – not the fair tone in which she had said it – Giulia quirked an eyebrow at her. "The two of us, we're – we're the hard-working, driven ones, we're motivated; we go above and beyond at school and devote our time to the children's hospice and I'm helping at Girl Scouts and you're going to be helping with Buzz's soccer team and you do _so much_ work as the Historical Society's junior representative, you always drop anything no matter how much work you've got to do if I need you, and despite everything when the boys needed you, you were there to save their _butts_. Yeah, our family situations aren't perfect like Elena's used to be, and this whole Elena-being-adopted thing really could've gotten to you if you'd let it because of your mother but, you're bigger than that. _You_ tried to remind _me_ at the Miss Mystic Falls pageant that I had _nothing_ to worry about when it came to Elena being the competition. You just said what I'd always known I just…didn't like to think about it…"

"We have so much more going for us," Giulia said, finishing the thought so uncomfortable for Caroline, smiling sadly.

"Yeah… Because we put the effort in," Caroline said quietly. "I get it, not everybody's like us, but Elena's just become so lazy, she's just being pushed around by her life, going with the flow rather than forging ahead on her own, and Bonnie… It just seems like she's isolating herself so she can continue to keep feeling victimised and alone – she did it with Elena for months and I was the one trying to figure out what the hell was going on and how to fix it, and now I'm a vampire, and she's pushed _me_ away to hang out with Elena."

"Well, even then there's still the lingering issue of Stefan," Giulia said. "She may know Elena loves Stefan but _she_ doesn't like vampires so she'll put everyone in an awkward position about it when she won't hang out with Elena…"

"And then there's you… I only really noticed Bonnie was being a bitch to Elena, because you and Bonnie, and Elena even, haven't hung out in months," Caroline mused. She sighed softly. "It wasn't even anything malicious, you weren't _fighting_ like Elena and Bonnie were, you just…"

"I realised that I don't have to feel bad about not spending time with people who have proven themselves to be _not_ very good friends," Giulia said, sighing. She didn't feel bad – the saddest thing about the situation was, she _didn't_ miss spending time with Bonnie or Elena; and their absence from her life didn't take anything from it. Which meant they couldn't have contributed anything either.

Caroline sighed heavily. "So that's it? You're just…walking away?" Giulia shrugged. Caroline sighed again, frowning thoughtfully at her. "You know, I thought you'd changed…" Giulia stared at her, not knowing where Caroline was going. "But I get it, now… This is who you've always been, you just…instead of doing everything to make other people happy you're…doing things to make yourself happy too… You haven't changed…you're just _better_."

Giulia smiled, uncertain how to respond beyond her eyes burning and her throat closing up with emotion. It was one thing to tell her best-friend that she wasn't going to put any effort into a relationship with her other friends, but it was another for Caroline to accept without judgement that Giulia had moved on, and to say Giulia seemed better for it. There was no-one else in Giulia's life at the moment who could say something like that…something almost – _maternal_. She and Car looked out for each other, they always had, but it had always been Giulia consoling Caroline, building up her confidence – now Car was telling Giulia that sometimes it was okay to let things go if they just weren't working.

"I had to make some changes," Giulia said, feeling the desire to explain herself. It wasn't about being malicious toward Bonnie and Elena, she wasn't Regina George and she didn't want to punish anyone, that would imply an undercurrent of anger or hurt feelings, she just…didn't feel _anything_ for them anymore, too much had happened, and where so many lines had been drawn, she was on a very different side. She had a very different perspective and it wasn't one shared by the old group of friends she had once been a part of.

She guessed that was high-school, and growing up.

"So…what does that mean for us?" Caroline asked hesitantly, and Giulia frowned.

"What do you mean?" she asked, and Caroline gave her an enigmatic shrug.

"I – you've got these new friends here, you're going to college classes, you're just… I don't know…"

"Car, you're the _only_ thing that kept me from – I don't know, moving _here_ ," Giulia said, waving a hand around, meaning New York itself rather than the coffee-shop. For some reason, Caroline's face fell. Thinking it absurd that she had upset Caroline, she asked, horrified, "What's wrong?"

Looking so sad and so lost, Caroline barely made eye-contact as she said, in a tearful voice, "I never wanted to be the one who held you back, Giulia." Giulia blinked, then frowned, biting her lip. That wasn't what she meant.

"That's…that's not what I – maybe I said it wrong," she said softly. "Ever since…my dad died…you've been the _only_ good thing in my life. You've never held me back, Caroline… You've kept me sane. You're _my_ humanity." Caroline's expression was so sad, so heartrendingly _earnest_ , searching Giulia's face. She sighed softly.

"Oh, then," Caroline said softly. The finished their coffees, Giulia tucked the _Arts & Leisure_ section of the paper into her purse, and they walked under cover of a light drizzle and some dangerously darkening clouds to the underground mall where the witches traded. She knew which shop she needed, though she had never been inside it and had only met the owner at Chocolat's: and that was why she had chosen this place, _this_ particular witch.

"Well, well, _la Bella_ ," Elise grinned, as she unlocked the front-door to her small boutique. "On my doorstep at daybreak. What can I do for you?"

"Daylight jewellery," Giulia said.

"No messing around, huh?" Elise said, raising her eyebrows. But she shrugged, indicating they come into her shop. Caroline wasn't stopped at the threshold, but then, this entire building was owned by Elijah. "Witches of New York aren't in the habit of creating daylight rings for people. Especially unsanctioned ones."

"Elijah gave me the jewellery," Giulia said, and Elise glanced up, her expression shrewd and surprised. Her dark eyes flicked to Caroline, who was gazing around the shop with something close to wonder in her eyes.

"But not the spell," Elise said softly, glancing back at Giulia. "He keeps that grimoire close to his chest and few witches in the city know that spell. It's a self-preservation thing. The more vampires know we can do the spell, the more they'll ask, the less likely they'll listen when we say _No_."

"Giulia's very good at keeping secrets," Caroline spoke up, glancing over from the corner where she was investigating a display of scented oils. "She kept her vampire family from everyone her entire life." Elise sighed, as Giulia rummaged in her purse, producing a plain white envelope, unsealed. She handed it to Elise with a smirk. Elise took it sceptically, not looking impressed, until she peered inside.

"Polaroids?"

"Mm. I hear you and your BF are _on_ again. Those are the originals – the only copies," Giulia said, as Elise sifted through the photographs, a blush rising in her cheeks. The Lost Weekend had been an eye-opening experience in a lot of ways – and Giulia had learned the supernaturals loved their leverage, no matter what form it took.

Elise sighed heavily, but she was smiling. "Alright. I need the lapis lazuli. And a little daylight." She locked the shop door behind her as they made their way onto the street; the brilliant thing about a city this large was that it was _full_ of people – and nobody ever made eye-contact. No-one paid any more attention to them as they would a homeless man, a mom of three juggling diaper-bags and bottles and subway tickets, or a drug-deal. Elise performed the spell in mere seconds, eyes closed, the jewellery in her palm as daylight made the metal settings twinkle and shine. Caroline remained just inside the doors, watching curiously.

"That's it?" she asked, perplexed.

"The more subtle the magic, the more powerful," Elise said, and Caroline pulled a considering face. As the sky warmed – the black clouds had drifted further away, still in sight but now burnished with a fine layer of gold from the sun – Caroline donned each piece of jewellery; the tiny lapis stud in her ear, the locket, the ring on her forefinger. She tucked the charm onto the necklace for safe-keeping until she could attach it to her charm-bracelet. But she beamed at Elise, surprising the witch by giving her a hug.

"Thanks," she beamed, examining her ringed hand in the sunshine.

"You're welcome," Elise smiled, a little thrown by Caroline being…so bubbly and friendly. To her knowledge Elise was more Chocolat's friend than the others', who knew her only through Chocolat's parties, but Ashlyn frequented her shop a lot, and she always gave Ashlyn sound advice regarding her magical study. "Enjoy the city." With that, they were dismissed; witches in general distrusted vampires, and though Caroline was the poster-girl for any sorority in the United States, she still had fangs and a newborn's appetite. But they didn't know Caroline.

"So, what now?" Caroline asked, beaming, practically bouncing on her heels as they stood in the street outside the hidden mall. "I know! Shopping! You _need_ a sweater! Your nipples are distracting me." Giulia rolled her eyes but grinned. Caroline had never been to New York, was a lover of _Gossip Girl_ , and Giulia's best-friend: there was _nothing_ Giulia wouldn't do for her, and a whirlwind tour of the city was just what she wanted for Caroline.

"–because you can get over all the perks here, now, you can push yourself, test your compulsion, practice snatch-eat-erase on the streets, go crazy – and there's no-one here to judge you for any of it," Giulia said, wandering out of _Saks_ with bags laden with treats – a sleek sharp-cornered cognac _Saint Laurent_ purse for Giulia with gold details, and a sparkling pearl-studded Valentino purse for Caroline; designer dresses, amazing jeans and a pair of Louboutins and Manolos each – and gazing around. Their trip up the Empire State Building had been great, they had stopped for brunch at a tiny place where Giulia had eaten cheese on toast – homemade bread with mushroom pâté drizzled with truffle-oil and gruyere cheese melted on top – with mimosas, while Caroline chatted happily about the places she'd like to see in the city. They had walked up and down Fifth Avenue, gazing into the glittering windows, Giulia had taken the obligatory picture with Caroline drinking coffee in big sunglasses gazing at a _Tiffany's_ window – they explored inside for a little while, coming out with dainty powder-blue bags filled with a jewellery-box and a leather diary.

"Okay, so, what do I say to my mom, the _sheriff_ , when she finds all these goodies?" Caroline asked, half-laughing. The thrill of compelling the snooty staff to give them the pieces for free with gift-wrapping and a smile squashed most of the guilt of 'stealing' in the first place.

"Mm. You tell her that we went through the Salvatore family jewels," Giulia said, smiling. "And I let you take your pick… I should do that, though, go through all the jewellery my family has amassed, get it valued."

"Do you have a lot?"

"Well, considering we're a small family but my grandmother, etcetera, were very fashionable and cultured, _yes_ , there's a lot of jewellery," Giulia said, frowning subtly. "And where there were no female descendants to split it all between when people died, we've just kept it all."

"That's kind of nice, though," Caroline smiled. "I remember when my grandma died, my mom got so upset because her two sisters kept bickering about Grandma's jewellery, it's like all they cared about. Eventually Mom went all Sheriff on them and she's locked it in a safety-deposit box for when I'm twenty-one. Except the charm-bracelet she gave me on my sweet-sixteen."

"That's quite sweet," Giulia smiled; she could remember Caroline's Sweet 16 as clear as this morning. Mr Forbes had come to town with Stephen and his daughter, and Giulia, Elena and Bonnie had all worked together on a surprise performance (with full dance routine) to "Spice Up Your Life" – Giulia had been Posh, Elena Sporty, Bonnie Scary, Caroline's pseudo-stepsister Ginger, and Caroline, she'd _always_ been Baby. Giulia had still been in her soccer phase, she felt if it meant she got to marry David Beckham, she'd try to sing in front of a hundred people in a strappy black mini-dress. "So – why the _diary_?"

"Oh. Well, it's kind of – I don't know – I just thought, Stefan keeps a journal, there are all these diaries the Founders wrote back in 1864 and I _hate_ that they're so full of hate, and, I can't tell my mom about any of this, so I thought what if I wrote it all down," Caroline winced slightly. "I might make it like a scrapbook, too, you know?" Giulia smiled; Caroline and her scrapbooks! She kept the local scrapbooking store in business. Giulia bought stickers there for kids at the hospice when they did really well on practicing their music.

"Just be careful your mom doesn't find your scrapbook about this weekend, or I'll be in jail for kidnapping," Giulia said.

"Orange works on you though," Caroline shrugged, and Giulia stuck her tongue out, chuckling. With the effortlessness of their friendship, they had struck a balance: after binging in _Sephora_ in Times Square, Caroline suffered to let Giulia browse an _amazing_ vinyl record store, they both enjoyed traipsing around Vera's favourite antiques warehouse to start furnishing Giulia's house, finding a couple of exquisite pieces - a mid-century telephone-chair and a Victorian rosewood dressing-table.

Giulia treated them, actually paying, for lunch at the hardest-to-get-into restaurant in Manhattan that Vera had created a frenzy for after critiquing it a few months ago, a Japanese-American fusion place owned by an English ex-pat and it was _flawless_. Giulia had to write down every detail of the dishes she and Caroline ordered to share and – as they had been all day, at every opportunity – took pictures of the exquisitely-presented dishes. The starter was a trio of 'sliders', the 'Los Angeles', a Wagyu beef tartare, smoky beer and jalapeño marmalade, avocado and butter-bean mousse, the 'Tokyo', which was monkfish liver, Umeboshi ketchup, jellied ponzu, and mayonnaise, and the 'London', curried lamb cheeseburger with apple and ale chutney and raita mayonnaise – all made from scratch, served on homemade mini beer-buns. The main course was a dish of Kyushu-style pork ramen noodles with pork belly, truffled lobster gyoza topped with porchini crisps, julienned rhubarb and spring-onion served with aromatic oils and pork broth, and they rounded up the meal with a trio of desserts, sticky toffee crème brûlée with blackcurrant stout sauce, deep-fried rhubarb and custard crumble balls, and a mini cheddar cheesecake with whisky jelly.

She was glad to undo the button of her jeans after that, booked in for full works at a spa Vera had not only recommended but owned, and gifted both Giulia and Caroline whatever treatments they would like. Giulia had been to a spa once, a present from Carol for her sixteenth birthday (and a little gift to herself from Carol, who had taken her; they had spent the day together, being pampered, although Giulia had also signed up for an intense boot-camp they ran at dawn), and Caroline had never been to a real spa. They weren't exactly Liz's thing and the closest Caroline had come was manicures during slumber-parties. So, they changed into fluffy robes and flip-flops, sipping detox smoothies and lemon, rosewater and mint water, munching on fresh fruit and nuts in between treatments – Giulia had an amazing-smelling facial and scalp-massage, and a full-body massage combined with a warm brown-sugar aromatherapy wrap that had her dozing on the padded bench, although a few texts between her and Elijah after Caroline went off for her facial and Giulia was called in for her full-body massage had her a little overheated and wishing _he_ had been there rubbing her down giving her an erotic massage with camellia oils… After Caroline's chocolate wrapper was rinsed off, they met for more lemon, basil and ginger-infused water, fresh figs and honey and mani-pedis (herbal-floral hand-soaks, and intensive-moisture chocolate pedicures with a hot-chocolate each).

"So," Giulia yawned, her hands wrapped in heated pouches, camellia-scented oils slathered on, cuticle-oils softening her skin, anticipating the hand-massage, "when I turn the Boarding House into a spa…you'll be the first guest, right?"

"Totally," Caroline sighed, eyes closed and half-smiling.

"Cool," Giulia mumbled.

"So is that what you're gonna do? With the Boarding House, I mean," Caroline asked.

"I haven't decided yet," Giulia yawned. "I know I've got to do _something_ with it, I've been thinking about it. A private boarding-school, a real _hotel_ , it's just – _who_ is going to run it if I open it up as a Boarding House again, because I don't want to, and where are Damon and Stefan going to come back to?"

"Yeah, but – they're big boys, Giulia, it's not your responsibility to look after them," Caroline said fairly. Giulia shrugged.

"My family always has. Mystic Falls is still their home. Stefan's been hoarding things in that attic room for decades," Giulia sighed.

"When he and Damon leave town, put their things in storage and tell _them_ how it's going to be from now on – don't forget, they'll have to deal with _me_ ," Caroline remarked, with an amusing bite of sternness to her tone. Giulia chuckled softly, then sighed heavily.

"Maybe I could turn it into a bourbon distillery, that would save so much time," she yawned, eyes sliding closed as her beauty-therapist started massaging her hand. Caroline laughed.

"With cocktail-making classes," she giggled. "Carol would be first in line if Damon was making cocktails with Tanqueray." They enjoyed a good giggle at Carol's expense for a while, and Caroline, flicking through a rag-mag, sat up suddenly, eyes bright. "Hey, so what's your dating-life like right now? You know _all_ the ins and outs of the Donovan Saga, what's up with you, are you going out with Cade or what? And don't think it escaped me that you're talking to Tyler again."

"His father just died," Giulia said fairly.

"So nothing's going on with him?"

"No!" Giulia laughed. She sighed. "I just sort of miss hanging out with him."

"Well, that's natural. You _were_ friends for like _ever_ before you started dating," Caroline mused. "And I'll bet he misses you, too."

"Yeah," Giulia mumbled.

"So. Not Tyler. What about Cade?" Caroline asked, with a little smirk. "So you've like closed up shop?"

"Yeah. Well, no – I've been having phone-sex with this guy every other night," Giulia admitted idly, shrugging, and she cackled with laughter at Caroline's reaction, almost spitting hot-chocolate down the front of her fluffy cream robe.

" _What_?!" Giulia laughed and laughed and _laughed_. "Who?"

"Can't tell you that," Giulia smirked. Caroline scoffed, but she grinned, shaking her head.

"You're terrible," she remarked, and Giulia grinned. When their manicures and pedicures were finished, they walked zombie-like to protect the polish to get their hair done: Caroline had her hair highlighted and her makeup done using organic mineral cosmetics, while and Giulia had her hair cut, eyebrows threaded and eye-lashes tinted.

Caroline never asked "What're we doing next?" because she seemed to realise Giulia had it all figured out – she could live in the moment, _relax_ , and it was blissful. Giulia had ideas, but she did ask Caroline what she wanted to do, not just steamroll ahead with what Giulia wanted to show Caroline. The balance was wonderful – and Giulia realised it wasn't the spa-visit that had lifted so much weight off her.

It was Caroline _knowing_.

* * *

 **A.N.** : Okay, am I the only one who wants to go on a Lost Weekend with Caroline and Giulia? Seriously.


	5. Turandot

**A.N.** : Continuing my note from the last chapter, if Enzo and Caroline had a kid, he'd probably look like Francisco Lachowski, or Chloe Morello: i.e. both too gorgeous for words! Also, Giulia's sons would look like Tom Hiddleston/Jared Leto.

Can anyone tell me, have I given Giulia a birth-date before?

* * *

 **Dangerous Beauty**

 _05_

 _Turandot_

* * *

"I don't know why, alcohol _helps_ ," Caroline said thoughtfully, trying and failing to hide her giddy smile. They had changed – Giulia into a sparkling champagne-coloured _Valentino_ halter cocktail-dress, Caroline in a heavily-beaded black mini-dress and a blazer – and now sat in a dark, cosy bar called "Death  & Company". They were drinking Manhattans _in_ Manhattan, as Caroline had pointed out, like Brittany Murphy when she had filmed _Uptown Girls_ , one of Caroline's favourite movies.

Giulia was teaching Caroline how to drink. She had the odd champagne flute at Founders' parties and they had both choked down beer at Duke's bonfires, but proper _cocktails_ and liquor were a different thing. And it was very grown-up, dressed up, in Manhattan on a Saturday-night, after spending half the day luxuriating at a spa, enjoying gorgeous food, shopping to their hearts' content, sitting at the bar sipping Manhattans and just talking. They had talked about everything from Stefan driving ambulances in Egypt during World War Two to Caroline trying half-heartedly to dig for details about Giulia's mystery phone-sex partner, the plans for junior-prom and the Seventies dance – she threatened she was " _totally_ going to have Stefan teach me how to disco, he seems like he was part of that scene."

"Very John Travolta-esque," Giulia said, snickering. "If he wasn't into punk I'd have said _Damon_ was very Tony Manero, not Stefan."

"I forgot you're obsessed with that movie," Caroline giggled, sipping her Manhattan. "Well, I guess we have no excuse not to put on an amazing Seventies dance. I'm thinking _Saturday Night Fever_ and _Dazed and Confused_."

"You know, _Star Wars_ , the _Godfather_ and _Jaws_ were all Seventies movies," Giulia remarked. " _Monty Python and the Holy Grail_ and _Rocky_. _Willy Wonka_ , _Rocky Horror_ , _Animal House_ , _Grease_ – it was a great era for movies."

"Maybe that could be the theme for the dance – Seventies movies, rather than just the 1970s," Caroline said enthusiastically. "That gives us so much more creativity for costumes."

"Definitely," Giulia mused. "I can ask Damon and Cara about, y'know, _stuff_ they had in the Seventies so we could decorate the gym. We've got the Sixties dance first."

"Yeah. And I definitely want it more _Mad Men_ than neon hippie tie-dye," Caroline grimaced, and Giulia nodded in firm agreement. _Mad Men_ was flawless. Giulia sipped her Manhattan, and blinked in surprise when her phone started to ring. Conscious of a cell-phone in a bar, Giulia hopped off her stool.

"Save my seat, I'm just gonna take this somewhere else," she said, and Caroline nodded, smiling contentedly – and not looking like she was about to panic at being left alone in a room full of strangers – as Giulia picked up her drink and made her way to the restroom door, which opened into a small ante-chamber. She answered the call, the number a strange one with a distant area-code.

"Hello?"

" _Hey, uh, is this Giulia? It's Mason Lockwood_ ," a voice said, and Giulia grinned.

"Ah, Hot Uncle Mason," she sighed. Then she blinked. "I said that out-loud, didn't I?"

" _Yeah, you kinda did_ ," Mason chuckled easily.

Giulia shrugged. "I'll roll with it. What can I do for you?"

" _Actually, I was calling to ask a favour_ ," Mason said hesitantly.

Giulia frowned, then sighed as if put-upon. "Is this going to get sexual? 'Cuz I'm hard to get. All you have to do is ask." Mason laughed, but he didn't comment; Elijah would've known that was a Lauren Bacall quote. "Sorry. I had a massage earlier, and I've had a drink and I'm in a good mood; I'll behave from now on."

" _Okay_ ," Mason laughed. " _Listen, so Carol's asked me to join her and Tyler for this spa retreat_ –" Giulia cackled richly.

" _Oh_ , man!" she chuckled. "The annual spa retreat. I'd forgotten that was coming up."

" _It's an annual deal_?" Mason asked curiously.

"Your brother used to take Carol and Tyler to Whistler for skiing every New Year," Giulia said. "That was for Tyler, you know, it got rid of some of that winter energy that builds up and is no good for him. The compromise was that they'd then do something Carol enjoyed for Spring Break. Tyler would get to hang out in Mystic Falls with his friends, and they'd go to a spa."

" _Oh. I thought it was like a real getaway, since Richard died_ ," Mason said.

"Are you annoyed you're the fill-in?" Giulia asked, smiling. "I mean, Carol's not one to throw invitations on anyone, I'm sure she actually does want you there."

" _Yeah… Actually, that's why I was calling, uh… Tyler's been talking about you, he says you and Carol are really quite close_ ," Mason said, and Giulia waited, " _I don't know, I was kinda…hoping you could go_?"

"Spas not your scene," Giulia guessed and Mason laughed.

" _Yeah, no_ ," he remarked.

"Which spa is it?" Giulia asked.

" _Um, it's one near Richmond, actually, Carol said she took you for your birthday? She said you weren't exactly a spa-girl but you enjoyed it, I think she was trying to convince me_ ," Mason said.

"Oh, well if you're going to the one Carol took me to, you've got nothing to worry about," Giulia said. "I mean, they have fruit-infused water but they do these really intense boot-camps at dawn for people who are into that kind of stuff, and I mean _really_ intense, they're the kind of thing that would be right up Tyler's street. The food is absolutely amazing, it's not just salads. It's all really healthy but the restaurant is Michelin-starred and they have their own kitchen-garden. And they do sports-massage and personal training sessions in the gym."

" _Huh_ ," Mason said, " _Okay, you're actually making it sound good_."

"It is. They have two pools, there are steam-rooms and saunas and as long as you take your own bar with you, it's pretty much perfect," Giulia said. She would have added a library but that was her preference. "Just so you know, Tanqueray is Carol's favourite. So she invited you? I think that's quite sweet."

" _Sweet_?"

"I've been talking more with Tyler recently, I think they both like that you're in town," Giulia said honestly. "You're all going through this together."

" _Yeah_ ," Mason sighed heavily. " _Alright. Don't tell Carol I called about this, I don't want to upset her thinking I don't want to spend time with her and Tyler_."

"She wouldn't think that – Mayor Lockwood never looked forward to the spa trip either, but he always enjoyed it once he was there," Giulia said. "I think that's half the reason Carol insisted they go on those trips, it wasn't just them indulging her because they were complete douche – er…"

" _Douche-bags, you can say it; Tyler's told me enough I know he was one to you_ ," Mason chuckled. " _Yeah, guys like us aren't easy to live with, and Carol had two of 'em. I can tell she really likes spending time with you. Oh – you might get a call from her soon, when I asked for your number she told me about some project you're working on for the Founders' Day anniversary_."

"Oh. Cool," Giulia nodded, making a note to anticipate Carol's call and appear somewhat sober while they spoke, even if she wasn't. "She's probably wondering how the recipes are coming and if everything will be ready for the dinner."

" _Not that I know what you're talking about, but sure_ ," Mason chuckled. " _Alright, just promise me you won't say anything to Carol or Tyler about me trying to squirm out of the spa trip_."

"Send me a picture of Tyler in a fluffy robe and we've got a deal," Giulia said, and Mason laughed richly.

" _Deal_ ," he said, and they ended the call. Sipping her Manhattan, Giulia made her way back to the bar, tilting her head to the side and watching Caroline giggle and flirt shamelessly with a cute bartender. Giulia smirked deliciously, creeping up to Caroline, and landed a sizzling kiss on Caroline's neck, giving the bartender a proprietary look – shocking the hell out of Caroline and making the bartender raise his eyebrows and wander away to another woman sitting on her own with a martini.

"Ugh, Giulia!" Caroline exclaimed, wiping her neck and shuddering, a flush high on her cheeks. Giulia laughed evilly and perched back on her stool. "So, Mason's going to a _spa_. You'd better send me that picture."

"Done," Giulia smirked. "It can go in the scrapbook. Have you finished your drink?"

"Yes! It was delicious! I want another one," Caroline grimaced guiltily.

"Well, unfortunately, my darling, we are on a schedule," Giulia smiled.

"Are we?" Caroline grinned. "Okay. Where you lead, I will follow."

"Let's go before you order another drink and start crooning the _Gilmore Girls_ theme to this entire bar," Giulia said, laughing, as she took Caroline's hand; they made their way out onto the street, where it was already dark and drizzling with a light filmy rain. Caroline picked up on a slight change in Giulia's mood; though she was chatty and smiling, Giulia couldn't stop thinking about Mason Lockwood.

"Okay, what's wrong?" Caroline asked, smiling. "You've been a little odd since Mason called."

"It's just – the timing is strange, that's all," Giulia said, biting her lip. She – the girl who disliked trawling social-media – had checked _Facebook_. Despite privacy settings there were ways to find information, especially when knowing exactly what she wanted to find.

"What timing?"

"Mason and Katherine both coming to town," Giulia said, shrugging slightly. "Mason coming to town after his brother was killed the night the Gilbert device went off, when Tyler reacted to it as well."

"Damon thinks there's something 'up' with the Lockwood family," Caroline mused.

"Well, whatever's _up_ with them…the Lockwoods were at the forefront of the hunt for vampires in 1864," she said softly. "George was the whistle-blower, he got the other Founders riled… Whatever they are, they're not _witches_ , Emily's spell would never have attacked another witch…they're not vampires…"

"But like they didn't react _completely_ , not in the way the vampires did," Caroline frowned thoughtfully, as they hopped down the steps into the subway station. "So, maybe, whatever they are, it's like…they're not _really_ supernatural."

"It _could_ be latent," Giulia said, the words hitting a little too close to home as she remembered the million needles piercing her skull. _She_ had reacted to the device, not as violently as Damon or Stefan – but she had still reacted. And she didn't know what that meant – part of her didn't _want_ to ever know, the other part, the part of her mind revving its engine to let her low-latent inhibition traits delve into the mystery, wanted to know _why_. But it was the part of her that wanted to live in ignorance and bliss that won out most days, she felt it in her bones that it was a self-preservative instinct, that if she looked into it further, her entire life would change, for good or bad she had no idea, she just knew there would be no coming back from it. The precarious grip she had on her life now was too much to test with seeking out answers she didn't really want to hear.

"What do you think Damon will do?" Caroline asked.

"Something nefarious," Giulia answered. She shrugged. "He likes _projects_. There's only so many times he can re-read _Gone with the Wind_."

" _Damon_ likes _Gone with the Wind_?"

"His copy is first-edition and signed by Margaret Mitchell herself. I think they might've even had a _thing_ ," Giulia said, and Caroline's jaw dropped. Giulia chuckled. "Anyway – he'll start digging; he's tenacious about his projects, when his curiosity's peaked, he won't stop."

"That's kinda like you," Caroline mused. "I guess it's a good thing you're taking college classes, high-school just wasn't difficult enough for you. Ha!"

"What?"

"I love that your version of 'acting out' is applying to take college-classes," Caroline giggled. "It's _totally_ you."

"Speaking of," Giulia said, smiling, "I know you're doing your SAT-prep course. Are you planning college visits? Because we could do some weekend road-trips and get a real feel for the campuses, you know, when it's not an official visit day."

"I've been thinking about it," Caroline nodded. "I had that phase of wanting to be a news anchor, but I remembered Logan Fell attacked me, so… I know I don't want to go school anywhere it's _cold_ – so California is basically where I'm looking at." Giulia nodded, pulling a thoughtful face. Caroline, a California sorority-girl? She could see it.

"Okay. We'd have to get you an awesome convertible and a collection of vintage sunnies," she mused. "When I come and visit we could road-trip down the Pacific Coast highway. Go to _Mexico_. I'm thinking the two of us, on a beach with _bottomless_ margaritas. Just, while you're at school, _please_ no Kardashian-stalking. If I find out you've moved to Calabasas I _will_ stage an intervention."

"I've been thinking about that, too; we can totally live so much more fabulously than they do," Caroline said, with a jaunty smile.

"You won't have to pay income tax," Giulia said fairly, and Caroline laughed.

"I mean like awesome vacations, important things like experiences and spending time together," she said, smiling. "I just – I _wish_ I could tell my mom, because I'd just – I'd like to do something with her that's fun and adventurous and something she'd totally love that she'd never expect _me_ to want to do."

"Like spelunking," Giulia said, and Caroline laughed.

"Yes, exactly! Cave-diving in Mexico. Or surfing in Bali, or I don't know, hiking up Table Mountain in South Africa," Caroline said, her face illuminating with excitement just at the very idea. "Things…things _you_ always said you wanted to do."

"Well," Giulia sighed, shrugging slightly, "as Scarlett says, Tomorrow is another day. You never know."

"I just…don't want her to hate me. More than she already does." She sighed, looking sad and uncomfortable. There was still a nugget of the old Car in there.

"Caroline. She's your mother. She'd kill for you," Giulia assured her sternly. "You said you remember Logan attacking you – you don't know _how_ worried your mother was then." Caroline sighed, shrugging off her melancholy. They chatted about colleges and Giulia's new Ancient Egyptian studies class starting after break with her Punk Politics class and her Criminal Psychology and Forensic Linguistics lectures.

"I mean, you don't waste your time with fluffy stuff," Caroline said, grimacing slightly. "Makes me feel like I couldn't get away with doing a Drama degree."

"Caroline, you have so much more potential," Giulia said honestly, then backtracked: "If you were to study _Shakespeare_ I would be there at _every_ performance."

"It's a moot point," Caroline sighed. "I won't ever be able to have a real _job_."

"No, but that doesn't mean you can't _work_ ," Giulia mused. "Vera owns the spa, I've met other vampires who own cafés and bars; there's no reason you couldn't start now to pad out your nest for later. Even Damon is active in managing his stock portfolio. Just because you can compel for everything you could ever want, doesn't mean you should."

"Yeah," Caroline sighed. "The novelty of having everything for free would wear off _really_ quickly. And I don't want to spend eternity going to lunch."

"You'd get so bored," Giulia agreed. Oh, Caroline loved a good pamper, a shopping-spree, but that was her treat to reward herself for all the effort she put into every aspect of her life. It was _equilibrium_. Caroline earned every indulgence she rewarded herself with. "Come on, I have something to show you."

"Okay," Caroline smiled uncertainly, but she followed Giulia to an illuminated building busy with people wrapped up in coats and furs over their eveningwear. The Metropolitan Opera was recognisable to Caroline only for watching Lily and Rufus attend Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde" in _Gossip Girl_. But she was suitably awestruck and they wandered through the milling crowds – some people dressed modestly for a special occasion they could rarely afford, a treat, some dressed to the nines like Lily van der Woodsen was about to arch a perfectly-shaped taupe eyebrow at their fashion _faux pas_. Giulia retrieved her tickets from the box office, and they were escorted to a box, supplied with champagne and glossy programmes. Giulia had bought the tickets months ago, intending to ask Damon to come with her: but Caroline, with her love for singing, would appreciate this her first experience at the opera. Caroline gazed around, entranced by the beauty of the theatre, the famous golden curtain, peering down at other patrons in their Saturday-evening opera finest.

"So, what are we seeing?" she half-whispered, eyes bright with delight.

"Okay, so we are about to watch 'Turandot', Puccini's last unfinished opera," Giulia said, smiling. "And this performance is _without_ the Franco Alfano ending. The Met hasn't performed it that way for ten years, so it's supposed to be a very special performance; and the actors are _phenomenal_."

"So, they sing in Italian, right?" Caroline grimaced.

"They'll have subtitles," Giulia chuckled softly.

The opera was phenomenal, and Giulia was swept up in it, the music washing over her, filling every cell in her body – Caroline was entranced, gazing unblinkingly at the stage throughout the first two acts, and during the Third Act during the performance of the famous "Nessun Dorma", tears rolled down their faces, Caroline so moved by their voices, Giulia choked up, her eyes and throat burning, brought to tears by the power of the tenor's voice, that this was her _mother's_ and her own favourite opera song, so moving, so _powerful_. She could listen to "Nessun Dorma" at midnight in the dark or on the sunniest, hottest day of the year and her reaction to it was always the same, brought to tears by its sheer power.

Part of Giulia buying the box-tickets had come with the opportunity to meet backstage with the actors; they were exhausted, but exhilarated, and willing to answer all Caroline's questions about _how_ they even went into learning how to sing opera.

If Caroline wasn't going to get a desk-job, she felt disdainful of pursuing a BA in Drama believing it a _lazy_ degree, Caroline could still do something extraordinary with her life. Maybe she wouldn't perform "O Mio Babbino Caro" at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden and become one of the greatest sopranos of the 21st Century but watching "Turandot" had inspired her; she was going to take singing lessons.

Giggling madly, Caroline shifted gear and they swerved onto Main Street, their Statue of Liberty sunglasses flashing, Giulia's ankles crossed on the dashboard, a Hurricane-glass in hand complete with colourful umbrella and bendy-straw, the backseat piled high with gift-bags, colourful tissue-paper fluttering in the breeze, "All Day and All of the Night" by The Kinks blazing from the stereo, the sun burning down and Giulia's stomach ached from laughing.

The rest of their Lost Weekend had been as luxurious, fun, jam-packed with excitement as the first day: when the sun had blazed in a clear blue sky, they had taken a boat-trip to see the Statue of Liberty, touring the museum; they had eaten _moules marinière_ with crusty baguettes and white wine in a lovely French café; toured an artisan chocolatier and gone to watch _Little Shop of Horrors_ on Broadway; they had taken a moment's silence near the site of the Twin Towers; and gone shopping, shopping, shopping, Caroline insisting they find something they could remember the entire trip by for the rest of their lives, though she'd refused to clue Giulia in on what she had planned as they skipped about Fifth Avenue shops, boutiques and galleries; she had also insisted they find the prettiest stationery so she could write thank-you notes and they had toured NYU and Columbia; Ashlyn had called telling Giulia she had forgotten to mail Jeremy some information on a summer programme at NYU for high-school aged kids they'd been talking about, so Giulia had retrieved the envelope from Cara's house – Caroline had giggled madly as they ceran-wrapped Ashlyn's entire bedroom and filled Cara's with paper-cups all half-filled with water – and they had taken a helicopter-tour over the city, wandered the Metropolitan Museum, touring the Costume Institute exhibition, the Cloisters, the European paintings section and ancient Egyptian and Roman art. They _laughed_ , they talked about everything – the ins and outs of Damon's _mushy_ feelings for Elena; what Sheila Bennett's Occult classes were like at UV, Caroline's attempts to read _Anna Karenina_ it having been referenced in _The Last Song_ by Nicholas Sparks, which she had read in the hospital in preparation for their movie-date; they ate at _Glow_ , a Balinese restaurant serving king prawns with green mango, and almond and chili pad Thai with coconut noodles; they put together a picnic of gorgeous artisan foods from different markets to eat in Central Park as the sun blazed down on them. They found Caroline's signature scent in _Serge Lutens_ ; she was almost frothing at the mout in the Judith Leiber flagship store where they found Caroline a 'New York' embellished clutch-purse; and most likely the highlight of Caroline's entire weekend was their afternoon-tea at The Plaza. They bought hazelnut lattés and toured second-hand bookshops, visited a gallery where Caroline compelled the owner to 'sell' Giulia an original Marilyn Minter for $1 – with free shipping.

The only thing that turned the mood of the entire weekend was being startled awake in the middle of the night, to find Caroline sitting up in bed, staring into the middle-distance in the dark.

"What're you doing?" Giulia grumbled, when her heart petered back to its original rhythm. Caroline blinked, tears dropping down her cheeks, which she brushed away and fidgeted, looking away. "Caroline?" Half-asleep and disoriented, Giulia untwisted herself and sat up, pushing her hair out of her face. " _Caroline_?"

"I remembered something," Caroline whispered, her voice choked. She wouldn't look at Giulia, whose immediate mental reaction was to scan through every awful thing that Caroline could possibly have been put through under the influence of Damon's compulsion or as a result of her nearness to Giulia. She swallowed.

"What did you remember?" she asked, in an attempt at a casual tone. For a long time, Caroline didn't answer.

Then, she whispered, "He told me to run."

Giulia frowned. "Who?"

Caroline's lower-lip trembled and she pushed her hand under her eyes as she glanced away from Giulia in the dark, refusing to look at her.

"Caroline?"

That lower-lip trembled again, more tears slipped down Car's cheeks, annoying her, and she sniffed, whispering tremulously, "… _your dad_."

Giulia froze. Confused. She frowned, "What?"

Caroline was so upset, she couldn't speak, Giulia could see it, it was all Caroline could do not to start sobbing, and it terrified her. As a vampire whatever Caroline was feeling had magnified from what she might have felt as a human in the same situation. And it was crippling. Giulia's _dad_? Caroline sniffed.

"I remembered – one of the last things I remembered before the memories stopped coming back… I opened the door," Caroline cried, twisting her hands in her lap. "I didn't know what I was doing and – Damon compelled me to forget I'd ever been…there – I opened the door to the basement… Your dad was too late to stop me – he told me to run…"

Giulia stared, suddenly wide-awake. What she had thought she knew about her father's death – she had _found him_ in the basement with his neck snapped… Caroline had been there? Damon's influence over her had been that strong he had drawn her from the school – she remembered Car had gone missing from the car-wash, leaving her in charge… He had coerced her to release him from the basement… And Giulia's dad had paid that price – before telling Caroline to run…

Her dad hadn't just been murdered by Damon because of his feud with Stefan, taunting him with his ability to hurt Elena (something he would never have done)… Giulia's dad had died protecting Caroline.

Caroline burst into tears, "I got your dad killed."

"You didn't. You _didn't_ ," Giulia said fiercely, suddenly choked with emotion. Knowing this tiny detail about her father's death changed everything… Her stomach evaporated, her mind flashing to the horrific thought that it might have been _Caroline_ … Caroline she had to live without… Caroline had gotten Giulia through the worst of her father's death… In her heart, Giulia acknowledged the punishing truth: her dad could never have gotten her through Caroline's death. Children were supposed to bury their parents; not their best-friends.

For a little while, Giulia couldn't say anything more. Turning over that tiny detail Caroline was crying over, her mind was a frenzy. And she couldn't stop coming back to the devastating thought that it might have been _Caroline_ who died. _Forever_. Damon might have killed them both – her father, her best-friend…

But her dad had told Caroline to run. He had given her the briefest instant to escape.

"Caroline, you didn't kill my dad," she murmured. " _You_ didn't. Stefan did. You were just…a pawn, you got caught between them... Please don't get mopey. Mopey for vampires is suicidal, and then you'll probably get hungry burning all those murderous-impulse calories, and eat me. It's not good. You are _Caroline Forbes_. Eternal optimist. Vampire Barbie. Princess Buttercup. Strawberry Shortcake; and I'm Maleficent, I'm Inigo Montoya, I'm Scar, I'm Lady Macbeth. I need you to keep being your glorious self so I don't turn into Bellatrix Lestrange."

Caroline choked but gave a great juddering sigh and turned a bleak, tearful smile on her. She sniffed, "I always thought you're more like Sirius Black."

"What?"

"Astoundingly attractive, brilliantly clever, loyal and _mad_ ," Caroline said, and Giulia pulled a face.

"I like that!"

"I don't know how you do it," Caroline mumbled, still upset. Giulia didn't know what to do with her feelings, beyond assuring Caroline she held _no_ blame for her father's death in Giulia's eyes. "How do you just…keep going?"

"I just…" Giulia sighed, lying back in bed. She sighed again, "get out of bed every morning. KBO." She glanced up when Caroline turned to her, frowning in the darkness. "Keep buggering on. And I listen to the advice of a wise 1,000-year-old Time Lord: ' _The way I see it, every life is a pile of good things and bad things. The good things don't always soften the bad things, but vice versa the bad things don't always spoil the good things and make them unimportant_ '."

"You know that entire quote by heart?" Caroline sniffed, wiping her face with her forearm.

"I can recite _Coriolanus_ if you want," Giulia offered.

"What?"

"Shakespeare," Giulia said, rolling her eyes; Caroline would only know _Romeo and Juliet_. "I'd never read that one before. ' _Would you have me false to my nature? Rather say I play the man I am'_. Stunning… So is this why you've been…odd? You woke up…the other day and you were really withdrawn…"

"Yeah," Caroline sighed. "I didn't…know how you'd react…if you'd hate me…"

"Because I – _I've_ been driving myself crazy thinking you're going to wake up hating me," Giulia blurted, and Caroline blinked quickly, staring at her.

"Why would _I_ hate _you_?"

"Because I kept everything from you, I didn't protect you when Damon hooked his fangs into you, I lied –"

"Okay, first of all, telling me that secret before I was a vampire probably would've made my brain explode," Caroline said, holding up her hand. "As much as I love _Twilight_ there's just no way I'd have believed it – you remember the séance? That was legit and I didn't even believe what was right in front of me. Second of all, you knew that if you were to bitch and throw your weight around with Damon about me, he'd most likely have killed me to make Stefan's life difficult. And…you were protecting your _family_. I mean, it wasn't just Stefan and Damon – if the Council found out you and your dad were vampire sympathisers… So, you're being ridiculous thinking I'd ever hate you."

"Even though I'm flawed and let you get turned into a vampire?"

"How were you to know Bonnie would blab to Katherine that I had Damon's blood in my system – she just took advantage of a situation already orchestrated by Bonnie and if it hadn't been me, it would have been someone else, maybe even _you_ ," Caroline said, her eyes widening. "So… I don't really mind that it was me…because it wasn't you. The way you were…the night you found out… If it'd been the other way round, if it had been _you_ she killed…"

"I doubt I'd make a good vampire," Giulia sighed, after a moment.

"No. But you'd make a great one," Caroline said. "Like Damon. You both have moments where you're immoral."

"Not immoral," Giulia said, musing. "Just the morals I prescribe to aren't the ones most other people do. By Byronic standards, Damon's the hero."

" _Damon_ is not a hero by any standards."

"You don't know Damon… You know the Damon he wants everyone to see," Giulia murmured, gazing at the ceiling.

"I think you see the Damon _you_ want to see."

"I'm not ignorant of his flaws, Caroline."

"His _flaws_ – he kills people."

"You've killed people."

"I killed a person… It's different – you've never killed someone."

"I've killed someone, Caroline."

"Setting fire to desiccated vampires in a tomb and beheading vampires who've been torturing Stefan all day isn't the same as killing a person."

Giulia didn't say something for a while, the silence growing darker between them, until she said, "I killed my mother, Caroline." Caroline sighed heavily: Who really lingered on the thought that Giulia had killed her mother when she tried to bring Giulia into the world? A mother dying in childbirth was as natural as it was tragic, sometimes their bodies weren't made for the strain. Motherhood, _childbirth_ was still the greatest danger a woman could ever face, that hadn't changed in thousands of years. "And after she died, there I was… Stefan was terrified of me, but _Damon_ … He stayed in Mystic Falls until I was two years old, helping my dad… Damon acts the way he does because it's easier to do what's necessary – to do the truly unforgivable to protect the people you love – when people don't expect the world of you."

"But that's so messed up, what, he doesn't like for people to see the best in him?"

"If people don't _see_ the best, they don't expect it. And if being a jerk means people don't _like_ him, it just means he's less likely to get hurt."

* * *

 **A.N.** : So, just finished watching _Thor: The Dark World_. Move over, aliens. When Loki and Giulia get married, the universe will truly explode.


	6. History Lessons

**A.N.** : I surprised myself writing this chapter so quickly, it wasn't where I'd intended to take this chapter but I think it works.

* * *

 **Dangerous Beauty**

 _06_

 _History Lessons_

* * *

"Look!" Giulia laughed, raising her drink in mocking salute as they blazed down Main Street, the sun burning down, puffing out a lungful of smoke as the song changed to _AC/DC's_ "Back in Black" and Caroline glanced up, beaming, to wiggle her fingers tauntingly before changing gear again, and Giulia's laughter echoed on the air as the powder-blue _Camaro_ rumbled past Bonnie and Elena, staring at them in disbelief. She saw them briefly exchange a ' _WTF_?' look before Elena started digging into her purse, and they were gone, back toward the Boarding House.

Damon was standing on the front-step waiting for them, bourbon in-hand; the glass shattered as he gasped and rushed forward, gazing at the powder-blue car, gushing, "Thank _god_ you made it back in one piece!" He inspected every panel for damage, not even bothering to give them a disapproving frown at the mound of bags in the backseat.

"We've been gone all weekend, we didn't even leave a note or anything, and you're more worried about your _car_ than your great- _granddaughter_ ," Caroline chided angrily, flinging open the driver's door as Giulia slipped out of the passenger seat, sipping her Long Island Iced Tea and sidestepping the broken glass. _Waste of good bourbon_ , she thought, glancing down at the ground.

"Just the very fact that my Camaro was _missing_ was a perfectly good sign that Giulia is still indeed alive and punishing," Damon said, shrugging those shoulders he always kept thrown back so arrogantly.

"So, your Camaro goes missing, you know Giulia's okay because you think she's doing it to get back at you: Giulia moves _out_ of the Boarding House _months ago_ and you don't even notice?" Caroline scowled. Giulia shot her a warning glare, the look hampered by her Statue of Liberty shades. "Even despite what you did to _her dad_ , Giulia's still there for you and Stefan when you need her, and you can't even be bothered to notice she's not lying drunk in a ditch somewhere."

"A – she probably has been drunk in _many_ a ditch the last few months," Damon said smarmily. "B – you moved out?"

"That is _exactly_ my point," Caroline said, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Okay, Blondie, who gave _you_ this dose of self-confidence?" Damon asked, with a vicious smile.

"Giulia. Who _you_ used to be super-close with because she's the _only_ person you've met who even has a glimmer of who you really are, and she's the most intellectually-stimulating person you know," Caroline said, with a cocky hair-toss. "Don't you think you owe it to her to actually _be_ the person you let her see you as?"

"Well, I would… She just hasn't been around much lately, I don't know what's happened," Damon shrugged, doing that defensive smooth-talking mixed with a hefty dash of arrogance, deflection and sarcasm.

"You killed her dad. When you tried to kill _me_ ," Caroline said sternly. "And you've been sniffing around someone you've no business being interested in."

"What?"

"I've come to view things, recently, as a sort of out-of-tune piano, a demented crossword," Giulia said, finally finding her voice after being stunned by Caroline's brazen attack-strategy before she'd even put on the handbrake. "Six across, five letters; 'undistinctive, tasteless'. First thing that pops into your head."

Damon frowned bemusedly at her, his expression amusingly suspicious. "…Elena?"

"It was actually 'bland', but…you get the idea," Giulia said, smirking lusciously, sipping her straw.

"Well, _you two_ have a tonne of catching up to do," Caroline declared, with the kind of tone that dared them _not_ to 'catch up'; Giulia sensed there might even be a pop-quiz coming up. She fixed Damon with a look: "Now that you've killed Jeremy and successfully ripped the cord with Elena, you've got no excuses, I am gonna go home, get showered, and see my mom. I'll give you…'til two o'clock Saturday, then you _better_ be at the swimming-hole in your bikini –"

"Well, it's just I haven't shaved my _legs_ in a while –" Damon interrupted: Caroline gave him a death-glare.

"Not you," she snapped, then scowled that daring glare at Giulia; "And you _better_ wear sunscreen." Caroline popped the trunk, and started rooting through the backseat, collecting bags. She gathered everything, cast Giulia a secret smile taking some of the things she had bought while Giulia had encouraged Car to snatch-eat-erase down Fifth Avenue flagship stores. She had said she was putting something together for Giulia to commemorate their weekend – not a scrapbook; she'd work on that in the next few months while she scheduled potential summer fun. Gathering up everything she thought was hers, she straightened up, her freshly and gloriously-highlighted hair bouncing over her shoulders. "Ask to see her college essays, you can read them while Giulia burns your Elena-shrine." She shot Giulia grin. "See you later."

She turned, and vamp- _zhoomed_ away, colourful glossy bags glinting in the sun. Giulia, a little frazzled by Caroline's less-than-subtle tactics, nevertheless glanced at Damon with a quirked eyebrow, mostly hiding her smirk.

"That feeling you're struggling with? That's being _discombobulated_."

Damon was still frowning after Caroline's now-disappeared form. "How d'you take the batteries out?" Giulia rolled her eyes, but smirked, reaching into the trunk and giving him a stern look to gather everything from the backseat. Pulling a face, he frowned and collected the bags, carrying them into the foyer.

"Anything interesting happen while we were gone?" Giulia asked breezily, carrying her things to the daybed. She had to go through everything – and Caroline was right, they did owe a few handwritten thank-you cards to several people.

"Nope."

"Figures. The two most interesting people _in_ town weren't actually _in_ town," Giulia said, smirking lusciously at Damon. He quirked an eyebrow, looking surprised; he filled himself a new tumbler with bourbon. "So this didn't become the Love Shack while the schoolmarm – meaning me – wasn't here to slut-shame Stelena?"

"Slut-shame – please, they're so vanilla she keeps her _bra_ on during sex," Damon snickered, and Giulia raised her eyebrows. "Back when we were playing that delicious catch-Stef-at-his-own-game game, I woke the two lovebirds. She spent the night but still fell asleep in her padded _Victoria's Secret_ 'PINK' training-bra."

"You're being snarky about Elena."

"Yeah, well, y'know, not everyone's as _zen_ as you are about loved-ones being killed – and hers came _back_!" Damon declared, pulling a face. "And I don't have an Elena-shrine, BTW."

"In this house? With Stefan living here? That would just be awkward," Giulia said, and Damon nodded. "Any stirrings from the Ghost of Slut-Girlfriends Past?"

"So far, not a murmur," Damon shrugged. "No mysterious disappearances, no sudden deaths, no accidents. I've checked out the most expensive foreclosures in town…"

"Yeah, but, she's not Isobel, Katherine likes to have toys around to play with."

"Isobel compelled two minions – admittedly, really hot ones with naughty lingerie and great card-skills, but still… You're right, though; Katherine's not the type to not be waited on hand and foot but she definitely wouldn't luxuriate in someone's sloppy seconds."

"And a house torn away from someone who couldn't afford one mortgage-payment is sloppy-seconds?"

"She's probably in a spa-hotel somewhere," Damon sighed, sipping his bourbon. He perched on the arm of the settee and fiddled with his tumbler while Giulia went through the numerous boutique-bags and shoeboxes and jewellery pouches and makeup palettes and compacts she had collected with Caroline. She was aware of Damon perched there, trying not to watch her, while she pointedly didn't look his way and fiddled unnecessarily with folding up plastic shopping-bags, flat-packing pretty boutique bags and winding the ribbons around her fingers for Caroline to use in her scrapbooking.

"Ssssssooo," Damon said uncomfortably. "How was New York?"

"Pretty good. Caroline has dirt on you. Seventies hair," Giulia said, glancing at him. "We went to Billy's."

"Vampire Barbie in Billy's?" Damon tutted, sighing. "What is the world coming to? Looks like you didn't _just_ go to Billy's. What did you two get up to?" Giulia gave Damon a sidelong look. And she told him everything – the gorgeous meals, the picnics in the sun, shopping, their spa-afternoon, going to their first opera, drinking Manhattans, _Little Shop of Horrors_ and _Sephora_ -binging, utilising Caroline's compulsion along Fifth Avenue, Caroline perfecting snatch-eat-erase.

"Seems like it did Blondie some good. Very _direct_ ," Damon remarked. He glanced at the Armani Exchange bag Giulia was rifling through. "New watch?"

"Yeah. Here," Giulia said, holding one of the leather boxes out to him. Her watch-collection was nothing to Damon's.

"For me?" Damon's face lit up, opening the box. His eyebrows rose, impressed. "Sweet." Giulia sighed as her phone-buzzed, a text from Caroline flashing up. _I'm home. Are you two talking_? She sighed.

"She wants us to fix this in a few days."

" _Fix_ this? I killed your _dad_." Giulia froze.

After a moment, she said, striving for a light tone, "You've never said it before."

"If you don't say it out-loud it's not real."

"You killed my dad," Giulia said softly.

"I killed your dad," Damon repeated quietly. "I killed Zach. Even before he was your dad, he was my great-great-great grandson. Surely there's some special nub in Hell for that kind of infanticide."

"I don't think there's any rules on that. At least you know you'd see Stefan there – Ripper binges aside, he committed fratricide," Giulia said lightly, folding some of her new clothes. Her evolving style was becoming darker, sleeker, edgy and tough, with immaculate details. The pair of Faberge-embellished black velvet _Balmain_ trousers were an anomaly, and a _must_.

"Hm. After Dad committed infanticide."

"It's a vicious cycle," Giulia said, glancing up at Damon with a bitter smile.

"I killed your dad," he said, not breaking eye-contact, deflated. "I shouldn't have – but I did. What am I supposed to do with that – you're the only person in the world I'd never want to hurt, and I killed the person you loved the most, the only parent you ever had. And I took him from you."

Giulia swallowed. Damon, the master deflector, had opened up, probably too much booze and not enough people to talk to. She glanced at him. What had happened with her dad was in the past, he hadn't killed Caroline then and she was stronger for it now. "Would you really have staked Caroline?"

"No," Damon said, after a sigh, a moment's thought, a sip of his bourbon. "I saw her with that dead guy – and all I could think of was Stefan, the first time he got high off human blood. Two well-mannered, hyper-achieving, essentially… _good_ people, and we both know how my baby-bro reacted… Guess I'm just jaded about the whole thing. Besides, I didn't have to stake her in the heart to take her down if I'd had to! Through the gut and she's distracted long enough to snap her neck and haul her away from temptation. You don't believe me?"

"You rarely say what you don't mean."

"I shouldn't have killed your dad. But I did… And I've ignored you teh last few months because…I can't stand the thought of you hating me." The raw vulnerability in his voice was so alien, it made Giulia look up. This was him, the Damon she knew, the one she adored more than almost any other person in the world. The side of him he never showed to anyone else, because vulnerability was a liability.

She sighed softly. "I'm more disappointed and hurt than angry. You killed Dad but Stefan put his – our – lives in danger over _her_. I could never hate you – but you _will_ lose my respect forever if you continue to pursue someone so _unworthy_ of you. Everybody we care aout _knows_ who we are; I wish you didn't feel like _you_ aren't good enough to be yourself." She broke off, and after a moment, mumbled, "You were always my favourite."

"I've had worse pets too," Damon sighed, with a tiny smile, reaching out to flick her braid. He sighed heavily, then. "So… I guess I know your opinion on the whole, me-liking-Elena issue." Giulia pulled a face, folding a pair of leather trousers onto the 'bottoms' pile she was creating out of her shopping haul.

"My opinion – my opinion is that small-town high-school dropout just _isn't_ ever going to be enough for you, and you were never going to think you were good enough if you felt the need to change yourself to be with her," Giulia said. Damon mulled that over, frowning.

"You know Elena's not actually a dropout, right?"

" _Yet_. How much school has she missed recently?"

"Touché."

"I may _disdain_ it but I can understand _why_ you started getting mushy feelings for her… It's like… You walk into a candy-store, and you notice for the first time in ages that your _favourite_ candy is there. You haven't had it in ages and you used to eat _tonnes_ of it, but somehow you haven't had it in ages and you've forgotten why. So you buy it – same wrapper, it looks _exactly_ the same, even the insides are identical. Exactly as you remembered, and it's gorgeous and nostalgic and all these amazing memories come back," Giulia said, smiling sadly. "And then you eat the candy. It doesn't taste the same, it's not exactly as you remembered it tasting. And then you realise, you ate _so much_ of it that it eventually made you sick, and after all this time your palate has matured, the candy's sickly and you have to spit it out because it's just not _right_."

Damon frowned thoughtfully into the middle-distance. Giulia opened the _Montblanc_ case in which a new fountain-pen for Stefan was tucked, stashing it on the side-table with a few other bits and pieces she had had fun with Caroline picking out for the boys – a red shirt so dark it was almost black for Damon, a copy of _The Dirt_ by Mötley Crüe (for a little perspective on Stefan's continued rehabilitation) – and started stacking her cosmetics, body-butters, perfumes, nail-polishes, on the floor by the daybed, next to the pile of boxes with her new crockery and glassware for the house in them. Several pieces of furniture, her Marilyn Minter and the two staggering hand-crafted chandeliers she had ordered would arrive in the next few weeks. "Have I overloaded your brain?"

"Hm? Oh. No. I'm just really craving liquorice," Damon said, and Giulia chuckled softly at his wink. He sighed. "So… you and Vampire Barbie did a little soul-searching, huh? In between retail-therapy sessions and pedicures."

"We multitasked," Giulia said, shrugging. "Did the soul-searching _while_ we had pedicures and drank Manhattans and cried to 'Nessun Dorma'."

"You saw 'Turandot'? That Puccini's original unfinished version they were performing at the Metropolitan Opera?" Damon asked, and Giulia nodded. "How was it?"

"Staggering. Caroline's… _inspired_. We talked college visits," Giulia said, biting her lip. "I think she'll go West Coast."

"And you'll hopscotch between the most illustrious schools in the world," Damon said decisively, sipping his bourbon. "College campuses; best place a newbie vamp can be. The sheer number of frat-parties will give her _oodles_ of opportunities to keep her snatch-eat-erase skills honed."

"We talked about doing some college visits," Giulia said, glancing at Damon. "We looked around NYU, Columbia and Juilliard. _I_ think Caroline was inspired by Puccini to pursue a career in the operatic theatre."

"Well, that's unexpected," Damon raised his eyebrows.

"At the very least, take singing lessons," Giulia said, shrugging.

"So, you two had fun," Damon sighed, eyeing everything. "How much stuff did you _abscond_ with?"

"Tonnes," Giulia grimaced. "I'd like to say I feel guilty, but – you see this price-tag?"

"Ouch. So… College visits…college _essays_. When did you start going to college classes?"

"January. Didn't Stefan tell you? It's called _communication_ ," Giulia said, waving her phone in Damon's face.

"Well, do I get to read them?"

"My stuff's all at the house."

"How strong is that tea?" Damon asked, eyeing her Hurricane glass on the coffee-table. "This _is_ your house, little girl."

"I moved out in February."

" _Where_?" Damon asked incredulously.

" _My_ house," Giulia said pointedly, and Damon's lips parted slightly.

"Ah… Well, what I had it built for," he shrugged. "What're you gonna do with this place?"

"Don't know yet," Giulia said, glancing around the great hall. "Something lucrative."

Damon narrowed his eyes. "Brothel?" Giulia snickered. "So, where'd you get Caroline's daylight-ring? Bonnie? Or Sheila Bennett?"

"After backhanding Bonnie across the parking-lot?" Giulia raised her eyebrows. "Just an acquaintance I made in New York. Found something interesting in Billy's."

"Good place to start, BTW. Snatch-eat-erase crash-courses on offer there _nightly_ ," Damon smirked.

"She's so guileless, they're like moths to a flame," Giulia smiled. "You don't have to worry about Ripper tendencies."

"Oh, I know. We'd've known within minutes… Now Caroline just seems…like she always was with you when there was nobody else around. Focused and confident."

"She's taken it in stride," Giulia said, shrugging. "Being a vampire. She hasn't complained or bargained or moped."

"Some people are made for it. She's lucky, though," Damon said, sighing.

"Why?"

"She has you. She has you to connect her to her humanity… When I turned the only thing that might've helped me through the transition would've been Stefan. But he turned. He _changed_ , so… Easier to let Lexi take care of him, how'd I even know how to take care of myself, I didn't realise how much I didn't want it, 'til it was too late. Now I would've give it back for the world."

"I know," Giulia said softly. She frowned, "Why've you stayed here? You know Katherine doesn't want you."

"Ouch! Don't pull your punches."

"I thought you'd decided you were leaving."

"Well, if you're turning this place into a brothel _I_ want a piece of that action. Maybe I'm curious about the Lockwoods. Maybe I want to help my baby-bro protect the girl he loves from all the things that go _bump_ in the night. Maybe I just don't have anything better to do."

"Speaking of… Tyler and his mom and mystery uncle are heading out of town to a spa retreat for a couple days," Giulia said, glancing at Damon, a small smile growing larger as excitement filled her. "I could borrow Stefan's ring and we could activate the Wonder Twin superpowers again."

"Ooh. What're we doing?"

"Well – I'm suspicious of the Lockwoods, too. Not Tyler and Carol specifically, they're oblivious to most things," Giulia mused. "But Mason came into town the same time as Katherine made her debut, George Lockwood was head of the Founders' Council in 1864 and – look at this –" She tapped quickly at her phone, going through her saved photos, bringing up one she had downloaded from _Facebook_ specifically. She brought it up on her screen and showed Damon, whose jaw dropped slightly as his eyes narrowed.

"You've gotta be _kidding_ – he's an aimless _surfer_!"

"I don't think she particularly cares about what his favourite things are to do during his free time, just as long as he knows how to use _her_ favourite parts to make _her_ free time more enjoyable," Giulia said, smirking. Damon wrinkled his nose at the picture, muttering something about " _surfer_ …" He looked up at her, glaring with that intense, purposeful look he got sometimes.

"So what do we do? Besides kill him."

"You're not going to kill him. We just have to neutralise any threat he might pose. I'll plant the seed, then we'll reap a reward," Giulia said, holding her palms out, giving him a measured expression. "He's just being _used_ by her, just like she used you all those years ago; all we have to figure out is why, and to what end. Help him see her for what she is."

"So…your goal in this is to find out about Mason Lockwood and why Katherine's trussed up like a South Beach body-shot waitress at Spring Break, you're not in the least bit curious why the Gilbert device affected Tyler and his dad? Come on, your head's not buried in the sand, you dated the guy!"

" _I_ could very well be asking why it affected _me_ ; but I'm not, so…" Giulia said, giving Damon such a pointed, accusing look he started to squirm despite his smile. For whatever reason she had reacted to the Gilbert device, she knew at the heart of it the cause was linked to Damon. Either because he had done something to her recently and she didn't know because he'd tampered with her vervain – or something had happened to her when she was little, when he was the one helping her dad get her through infancy after the death of her mother. "Makes sense, though."

"What does?" Damon asked, his tone sharp, almost suspicious.

"Whatever they are – in 1864 didn't George Lockwood spearhead the Council?"

"His father only cared to show off his money, but George was different. Brutal bastard. He fought for the Confederacy, but he didn't need to be on a battleground to kill people; he had slaves for that," Damon said grimly; Giulia knew Damon's political leanings. "The town archives don't breathe a hint of it but he was the most sadistic slave-owner for a hundred miles… I saw _piles_ of them in pieces once," Damon breathed, his eyes faraway and haunted. "Never got that image out of my head. Strange fruit… He couldn't understand why I objected to slavery. Or using little kids in the mills. And I tell you what, for the five kids he put in his long-suffering wife, he forced another dozen on maids and debutantes. Have to say, didn't put _any_ effort whatsoever to stop Stef butchering him." Damon ruminated on memories as he stared into the middle-distance, sipping his scotch. Then he blinked, and frowned at her. "Giulia…you don't even look shocked."

"Different time," was all she said, quietly.

"Yeah. It wasn't all Jo March and cotillions," Damon sighed.

"Josephine March was after your time."

"She was _during_ what would've been during my natural life-time," Damon smiled. "So. What do we do? Can't search the town archives, they'll just glorify the Lockwood family… The original Lockwood plantation burned down – _guilty_ – in 1864 – well, I had to cover Stefan's tracks after he killed George, his parents and all the slaves! Got his wife and five kids out, though. Me. The bad-guy. Saved babies from a burning-house."

"After you first set the fire," Giulia smirked.

"Details."

"Well, like I mentioned, they're going on a spa-retreat for a couple of days," Giulia said. "You've been invited into the house, we just have to make sure to compel any of the staff who might be there."

"What're we looking for?"

" _Anything_ ," Giulia shrugged. "You know, I've never read the Lockwood journals, I've read _all_ the Founders' diaries but Mayor Lockwood thought they'd been burned when – when _you_ lit up the old antebellum plantation-house."

"George's family were all money no class," Damon sighed, shaking his head. "I got the good stuff out, though – jewellery, paintings, a couple daguerreotypes…"

"It sounds like you took a lot of time clearing out the house of valuables the owners would appreciate before you burned it down," Giulia said softly, and Damon gave her a wan smile.

"I _liked_ Maria – George's wife. Sweet girl. Amazing ear for music," he sighed, looking sad. "The night Stefan killed George…I was with him. When I was a human I had my suspicions about how he treated her…the night Stefan went for him, we waited outside the house… He visited her, that night…and I knew."

"You didn't just _like_ her," Giulia said softly, and Damon gave her a tired smile. He sighed, gazing into the distance.

"If I hadn't married Alice, it would've been her," he said quietly. He sighed. "I compelled her to forget what she'd seen, to not breathe a word that Stefan and I were still alive… I compelled her to be free of George in her heart and live _happily_. I made sure she and her children would be okay… And then we screwed – and screwed and screwed!" Giulia laughed, shaking her head. _Of course_. "What?! I was grieving – she'd just lost her husband."

"Yeah, I'm sure you selflessly offered yourself up to help her get through such a difficult time," Giulia smirked. Damon shrugged, sipping his bourbon.

"You know, she was the first person I ever… _enjoyed_ and fed on and lived with."

"I thought Sage taught you that."

"Maria was different – I _wanted_ her, I wanted to be _with_ her and look after her," Damon said, frowning thoughtfully. "She knew how it felt to be betrayed by the person she loved, even though they were cruel to her."

"George didn't betray her."

"He died. Left her with five children, house burned down…and there was _still_ a war going on," Damon said softly. "During the carnage with the vampires, a great deal of the slaves in town mutinied, they made their escape north. Half the Lockwood slaves made the journey…they left Maria and her children vulnerable." Damon sighed. "I had my own issues with dealing with the transition. For that brief time it still hadn't really sunk in that that _couldn't_ be my life. Alice, Katherine, George, they were all gone, I was _changed_ but I was still myself…Stefan was off the rails but… For a heartbeat I thought things could just move on… Plus, she was _so good_ in bed after we got used to each other, there's no way I wanted to give that up!"

"What happened?" Giulia asked, smiling. It sounded to her like Damon had loved Maria Lockwood. Even if he didn't realise it himself, Giulia believed love wasn't mutually exclusive, she believed someone could love many times, sometimes at the same time, and each love was unique and exquisite. His love for Maria Lockwood may not have been what his love for Katherine's was, but they were two different women, just as Alice Salvatore had been a different woman before any whisper of Katherine Pierce had been heard of in Mystic Falls. Damon had loved them all.

"Emily Bennett thought she was in danger, she found me – told me about the tomb, made me swear to protect her family…they came for her," Damon said tonelessly. "I couldn't stop them… They burned her alive, and I didn't get there in time…"

"And that was that. My anger at Stefan returned, a hundred times worse – he was better off, under Lexi's influence," Damon shrugged. "I hated that. Hated him – hated the thought that Katherine was _desiccating_ slowly and painfully in a crypt, hated that Emily hadn't told me – I hated that I'd have to wait so long to see her again."

"When did Maria die?" Giulia asked quietly. Damon sighed.

"1902. Ten years before I came back to Mystic Falls for the first time since I left it after we turned," Damon said sadly. "Zachariah had been given a lifetime's worth of letters Maria had written – to me. But never posted."

"Did you read them?" Giulia asked. Damon nodded mutely.

"Yeah. I had no idea she was such a talented poetess. It's something we used to talk about in bed…poetry, literature," Damon said, with a sad smile, as Giulia rolled her eyes. "I had her letters bound into a book…it's in the library. I'll find it for you."

"I thought we could go and look through the old plantation ruins," Giulia spoke up, as Damon sauntered toward the library. He returned with a leather-bound book, handing it to her.

"Right now? Can't. Waiting for Little Gilbert," Damon shrugged. Giulia's eyebrows quirked dramatically, her expression intense. "Simmer down."

"Why are you waiting for Jeremy?"

"Well, because I called him to come over here, when he finally answered his phone. Jenna's screening my calls to the house, and Elena's blocked me."

"I thought Stelena had agreed _not_ to tell Jenna about your snap-happy mantrum."

"Oh, they haven't told her; Jenna just doesn't like me because she knows I tried to kiss Elena."

"Even though it was actually Katherine whose throat you tried to cram your tongue down."

"See, you get the distinction – Stefan is _so_ sensitive about the whole situation."

"I see the finer points: you kissed Katherine. Jeremy came back."

"And you're not mad. So…as long as there's no irreparable damage, you don't really mind what I get up to?" Damon frowned, a tiny smirk lingering on his lips. "I'm gonna file that away for later."

"Don't push it. Why did you ask Jeremy over here?" Giulia asked.

"Well, he's just so _cute_ those brown eyes, I thought – d'you think he'd _ever_ go out with me? Not like a date but –" The doorbell rang, and Giulia rolled her eyes as Damon smirked; she went to answer the door.

"Hey, Jem, you're just in time, Damon was waxing lyrical about your eyes," Giulia said, glancing over her shoulder at Damon. "I think he's drunk but he either wants to ask you out on a date or – " Damon made retching noises – "or he's invited you over here to kill you? Again." Damon mouthed 'apologise' to her, mid-retch. "I mean, I don't mind if you're branching out, trying something new, a little experiment–"

"If I upchuck the blood-bag I just fed on all over the Persian," Damon called, "it's coming out of your allowance."

"This is _my_ house!" Giulia called back, guiding a perplexed and slightly nervous Jeremy into the hall. "You're just the homicidal squatter." Damon reached for something by the bar as Jeremy sank onto the sofa, eyeing the shopping-bags in surprise. He sauntered over, presenting a brown-leather journal to Jeremy.

"What's this?"

"Stole it from Stefan's stash. Alright, I know you've been hard on Elena about this whole thing – hey, I'm not judging, I'm the last person to call you out on punishing siblings," Damon said, holding his hands palms-out defensively as Jeremy frowned. "I also know you read one of Jonathan Gilbert's journals, and John…got into your head about some kind of messed-up family legacy and this warped responsibility and this hatred you're supposed to inherit with that ring." Jeremy glanced at the clunky Victorian onyx-set ring on his finger.

"Where's he going with this?" he asked Giulia, who shrugged.

"No talking in class," she said, as Damon snapped his fingers in front of Jeremy's face, looking annoyed.

"Before I turned into a vampire, I was a Founding Son, just like you. From what Giulia's told me, your dad was okay. My dad was like John Gilbert – a huge dick no-one liked, and his kids lost respect for him. Back then, this town was run on the blood of slaves, it's a part of their own legacy the Founders delight in ignoring. Not exactly P.C. but that's the way the world works. It was the way of life back then, it was like two separate realities, the genteel lawn-parties, and brutalising slaves. I mean, Jonathan was a little different, he'd been educated in England, he was always a little whacked out – he liked the opium!" Giulia snickered, smirking at Jeremy, who smiled slightly; there were definite similarities in the Gilbert descendent. "As slave-owners went, Jonathan was one of the best, he valued human-life. He saw the real natural order: animals, humans, vampires. Colour didn't matter to him… He was actually one of the most influential people in my life at that time. Suggested books to read, poets, saved his newspapers for me, tried to convince my father to send me to college in Europe. It's because of Jonathan Gilbert I had the views I did, the politics – I left the Confederacy a few months before Jonathan Gilbert rounded up all the vampires in town. When we went to save the woman we both loved, my father shot me, and Stefan, in the back."

"Your father killed you?"

"He didn't understand what John Gilbert doesn't get, but what Giulia tells me your dad would've; that you're young, but your opinions matter. Nobody sees the world the same way – that journal you read, it was written before _Origin of Species_ was widely available, when this country was torn apart by war; Jonathan was a slave-owner, his friends raped and brutalised and humiliated human-beings because they believed skin-colour made them _less_ than humans. Jonathan was a good man, he was; but he also didn't have the benefit of a modern scientific education, he was an opiate-user, he was the political radical of this town. He was a product of his time; you are a product of yours." Damon pointed to the blank leather journal he had handed Jeremy. "I think successive generations of Gilberts should hear from an ancestor who's young and compassionate, and has known loss and suffering – and who's taken it easy on the narcotics recently. I'd want you to tell future Gilberts I'll meet that it's okay to see things differently than your parents, because every experience is unique…" Damon shrugged, then narrowed his eyes at Jeremy, pulling a face. "Maybe…we should've done this when you weren't stoned, Giulia can record it on her phone."

"No, I'm not – I'm not stoned," Jeremy half-laughed, looking unsettled, surprised and strangely relaxed. "Just thinking."

"Oh. Kinda the same facial expression," Damon grimaced. "There's pens in the study – not Stefan's _Montblanc_ , he'll stab you in the hand with it if he catches you ruining the nib." Jeremy trailed into Giulia's father's study; she folded her arms loosely over her stomach, a gentle smirk highlighting her cheekbones as she watched Damon.

"What?"

"You old softie."

"Shut up," Damon rolled his eyes. "Stefan gave me a lecture the other day about 'doing the right thing', it just kept nagging me. So; the right thing," he said, gesturing toward the study. "Now I'm not strong-arming Little Gilbert into making nice with Elena, I'm telling him it's okay to be different from his family."

"It's strange to think one day you'll meet Jeremy's descendants."

"Rate he goes through girlfriends, it's strange that he doesn't already _have_ descendants."

"Well, he _might_ , you keep killing his girlfriends."

"Where is Anna, anyway? Kind of been waiting for her to pop up unexpectedly like some titchy goth portent of doom."

"She is in Brisbane, with Pearl."

"Australia?" Damon pulled a face, and Giulia shrugged.

"Mm. Yo, Necrophilus, you hungry? I've been craving guac and I am one Jem short of a real _fiesta_ ," she called. "I thought we could eat on the patio at _El Toro_." Jeremy reappeared, giving her a look.

"That is _not_ a good nickname."

"It seemed nicer than 'Corpse Jockey'."

"Okay – wow," Jeremy blushed.

"Oh, speaking of girlfriends – Ashlyn forgot to put this in the mail for you," Giulia said, rifling in her purse for the large brown envelope. "Apparently there's some programme for high-school kids at NYU over the summer?"

"Yeah," Jeremy smiled. "It, uh, it's a hundred dollars for registration and accommodation for six weeks, and I'd have to buy supplies, but it looks really cool."

"Six weeks in New York in the summer?" Damon smirked. "You'd have a great time. With tasty Ashlyn, too? A real, _live_ lushy little witchling." Giulia's eyes popped, and she elbowed him. Jeremy gave a soft chuckle.

"I know Ashlyn's a witch," he said, and Giulia relaxed. "I–" Jeremy blushed, glancing at Giulia. "I kind of went off on one about you guys, she told me _she_ knew the secret. She told me she's a witch."

"Oh," Giulia said. Ashlyn had failed to mention that – but she was glad. One more person Jeremy could talk to about all of this, and one more person Ashlyn could.

"So – Mexican. Grab your diary, Little Gilbert. I can talk you through the alphabet on the drive over," Damon said, downing the last of his bourbon and holding his hands out for his keys. Giulia smirked as Jeremy rolled his eyes, and dropped the keys into his open palm.

"You know Caroline's decided to start a diary too," she said, calling shotgun; Jeremy climbed into the back of the _Camaro_ , looking impressed by the old car and excited he got to take a ride in it at all. "She's writing it because she can't tell her mother anything. Kind of depressing, really."

"Oh, Giulia, um, Jenna wants to talk to you, by the way," Jeremy spoke up from the backseat.

"Oh?"

"Something about family-night." Giulia twisted in her seat, giving Jeremy the absurd kind of expression that statement deserved. _Family-night_?

* * *

 **A.N.** : To _Ruapehu82_ , I hope this chapter sort of exhibits that Damon's coming back to the person I'd written him as in the beginning of _Drunken Binges_. He was always there, he just had to kick the Elena-habit first and acknowledge what he'd done to Giulia. But now, the glorious duo are being drawn back together.


	7. Chains

**A.N.** : I was made redundant today, after being messed around with extended probation periods and no training to improve where they felt I was lacking. And I have a few sage words for you all, whether you're still at school or starting work after uni or even stuck in a job you don't like: speak up for yourselves, even if you're uncomfortable doing it. Don't let people bully you into not asking for help. Don't be afraid to go to your teacher/manager, or their manager, reporting bullying. Keep working, don't give up, and always try to leave on your terms, head held high, with dignity.

On the plus-side, more fanfiction for you all!

* * *

 **Dangerous Beauty**

 _07_

 _Chains_

* * *

Things weren't the same, they could never be. The situation as different: Damon wasn't in town on one of his whirlwind stops, taking her out for an amazing weekend before disappearing again. Despite all he said, Damon was building a life in Mystic Falls – what had begun as a security-blanket, self-reservation, a means to taunt Stefan – it had come away from him, now its own monster. And Giulia was disillusioned. They could never go back to the way things were but having come through the other side of some truly awful shit, their bond was altered but becoming stronger for it. Discovering her father had died giving Caroline that fleeting chance helped. They were two enigmatic, hyper-articulate and incredibly well-educated individuals, so alike that if they hadn't had their own unique flaws, they might have absolutely loathed each other. But the opposite had happened.

And they closed ranks: their bond was a No Trespassing Zone and anyone who dared threaten it ran the risk of having their heart torn from their chests.

Giulia didn't move back into the Boarding House – the lines had been drawn, and the place was no longer home. Secretly she hated it, would have torn it down and put up affordable housing and a playground, but the Town Council had granted it status as a Historical Building and she wasn't allowed to. But she spent a little more time there, a phone-call from Jenna triggering the possessiveness in Damon that had been so latent recently in his distraction: once a week they were going to cook dinner, he would proofread her dissertations and she would trounce them in _Scrabble_ – "them" being Damon and Stefan, who was behaving a little oddly: he was being _nice_ to her. Like, wanting to spend _time_ with her. At the public library; he even offered to take her to school; he had requested her as a friend on her online- _Scrabble_ game – in general, he was driving her crazy, wanting to be besties. She supposed there were worse people to discuss Danté's _Inferno_ with. But it wasn't _natural_ – wasn't _right_ – she and Damon had the close bond. Stefan ate her pets (he claimed to have been the one to feed Firenze while Giulia was in New York with Caroline). But he was trying, something he hadn't since returning to Mystic Falls – she was Damon's, and he'd always known it. But he was trying.

" _Yeah, that might be my fault_ ," Caroline said over the phone, as Giulia sipped a berry smoothie. She was luxuriating in the sunshine, sat at a small mosaic table outside an independent café, in a black sundress printed sporadically with white flowers, with tiny racer-back straps. The sun stung her skin deliciously, a gentle breeze rolling off the river, and she had sunglasses on to combat the glare off her textbook pages. " _I kind of went off on one the other day about, you know, him…getting your dad killed, and spending all his time with Elena, not manning up and trying with you. And then Damon overheard and teased him about something like 'all talk no trousers_ '–"

"I'd really rather Stefan have trousers on if we're talking about him," Giulia grimaced.

" _My point is, Damon told Stefan he's always saying he's the better person but so far when he should've been there for you, he's been sitting in Elena's lap_."

"Again, _urgh_. I don't need to be friends with everyone, Caroline," Giulia said fairly. "We're family. That means we don't have to like each other."

" _Oh, I know. What's that quote you used to have on your English binder_?"

"'I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and l like less than half of you half as well as you deserve'. Words of wisdom from an eleventy-one-year-old Hobbit," Giulia grinned lazily. "But in future could you please lay off the guilt-trips, Stefan's starting to freak me out with all the wanting to hang out. Torturing him with The Beibs while he was rehabbing was one thing – he wants us to play _board-games_."

" _He's not letting you play_ Cluedo _is he_?" Caroline asked anxiously. Giulia pursed her lips.

"Damon says we're not allowed if he's home," she said peevishly. "Apparently he's still scarred. We're supposed to have another games-night soon, d'you want to come?"

" _I'll bring some board-games – yours are the worst! Wait, why is it 'games-night'_?"

"'Family night' felt a bit like a slap in the face," Giulia said darkly.

" _So, why're you having games-night_?"

"Damon's feeling territorial after Jenna invited me over for family-night."

" _That's a little awkward_ ," Caroline said, and Giulia pulled a face her best-friend couldn't see. That had been her initial thought, but it had turned out to be a good night. She'd never had a mother, but Jenna had been supportive and tough and funny and sweet and she'd thought, _Hey, this is must be what it feels like_. It had made her stomach hurt for missing her dad. He'd have liked that Jenna asked a. if Giulia was eating vegetables at least twice a week, b. whether she was doing her homework and not staying up on her computer all night (guilty) and c. if she was using condoms.

"It's much more _Modern Family_ – Elena wasn't there, but Ric was, we watched _Labyrinth_ and tortured Jeremy about Ashlyn," Giulia said, smiling. Ric was quite good at card-games, they'd sat around the kitchen-table playing blackjack while Jenna drank a glass of wine and Jeremy sketched Giulia, who had been asking _Mr Saltzman_ what his experience at Duke had been like as a student.

" _Poor kid_ ," Caroline chuckled.

"Jenna's relieved Ashlyn's four hours away – and _alive_ – she thinks it's not good for him that Jeremy falls so fast and so hard. She thinks a little distance will help keep things at a regular, human pace. That, and she's cracking down."

" _Really_?" Caroline asked sceptically.

"Her nephew's a serial monogamist whose girlfriends are all _dead_ and her niece is a. dating a vampire and b. an unnatural freak of nature with an ancient evil-twin who stabbed her uncle-father in the kitchen. Maybe I should design a Mystic Falls _Cluedo_!"

" _Oh_ god."

"If you're coming to games-night bring some snacks; Damon keeps the Kool-Aid replenished."

" _I know; I've been pilfering from his supply_ ," Caroline admitted guiltily.

"At least you're not pilfering from his watch collection," Giulia said lightly, shrugging.

" _You know, I asked him about his signed copy of_ Gone With the Wind _and he said if I even looked at it he'd put my eyes out with his thumbs, he wouldn't even bother with the red-hot pokers_ ," Caroline said." _He's worse than you when I fold a paperback-book back on itself_."

"That's just demented, it's one of the first signs of mental instability – _sickening_!"

" _Oh, by the way, you can't have your games-night this week_."

"Why's that?"

" _I have set you up on a date every night this week. You probably_ are _having phone-sex with some guy, I wouldn't put it past you, but I think you need someone around you can, you know, scratch and sniff_."

"Wow – I – wow. I have to go now."

" _I'm not joking. Five nights, five dates. I wanted to sign you up for speed-dating but you have to be eighteen_."

"I really have to go and pretend you haven't just told me you've pimped me out!" Giulia said, holding the phone away from her head, calling to it, "Bye, now!"

" _I'm sending you their details – wear something hot. And – oh, he's only fifteen but Callum is six-foot-seven and his back muscles, oh my – just be gentle_."

" _Oh – my – god_!" She fought with her phone to end the call, glaring vengefully, and comically – and a little titillated at the same time (six-foot- _seven_?!) – at the device as she struggled to end the call with the stupid touch-screen and condensation from her sweating smoothie, startled as a shadow fell over her, the chair beside her moved, and someone in an immaculate suit sat down, a twinkle of amusement in his dark eyes. Giulia arched an eyebrow, glancing at her watch, saying, "Two years is no age-difference whatsoever."

She peered around, blinking, then asked, "Have you got springs? Where'd you pop up from?"

"Forgive my lateness, I would have joined you earlier but your conversation was far too amusing."

"See how amusing you'll find this; if I'm out every night, I'm not with you."

"No. But you'll be thinking of me while you're with other men; there is little better than that knowledge," Elijah smirked deliciously. Giulia raised an eyebrow, playing it cool.

"Don't flatter yourself," she scoffed in amusement, sipping her smoothie. She tilted her head and shot him a sly look. "How went the recruiting venture?"

"Profitably," Elijah said, sliding her a look. She knew she would get no more from him than that, and she shrugged as if she didn't care.

"You found what you needed?" she asked, sipping nonchalantly at her smoothie.

"The component parts required, yes," Elijah said, taking the smoothie from her gently, frowning as he eyed her straw, then took a sip. He licked his lips, and Giulia _adored_ watching the exquisitely subtle reactions dance across his face like light shimmering off dewy spider-webs.

"But will they work seamlessly together?" Giulia asked. Whatever his plan – and Giulia had a pretty shrewd idea what Elijah was gearing up for – in her own mind there were too many variables that could lead to his failure. The greatest wasn't underestimating his foe; it was in overlooking human-nature. Whether a vampire or anything else, supernatural creatures had all at one point in their lives been born human; a vampire had heightened emotions but they were the purest thing a vampire retained from their human lives.

Besides, she knew he was fibbing: he _didn't_ have all the component parts...

* * *

"I am an idiot!" _she cried, smacking a palm to her forehead. Sprawled on the floor of Mayor Lockwood's study, a secret little cranny under the floorboard had been lifted, the concealed safe cracked with Giulia's deft fingers and Damon's supernatural hearing, and as she opened the engraved ivory box lined with velvet, she was thrown back to seventh-grade, when she and Tyler had discovered most of the hiding-places tucked into the old house. Tyler had scoffed at why his dad, who was unsentimental and a brute, had held onto a great hunk of milky white rock._

She'd known the whereabouts of the moonstone for years, and never realised it. She had never known the significance of that rock hidden beneath the Lockwood floorboards with other secrets.

"What?!" Damon frowned, glancing over his shoulder at her. He'd been knocking his clunky ring against the panelling throughout the entire house to check for anything that sounded like it had false-backs. She had turned over the house, unearthing the old hiding-spots where Giulia and Tyler had previously found bonds, Mason Lockwood's baby-teeth, an 1860s pistol, a very old bottle of absinthe and some pot.

"Nothing," Giulia sighed, shaking her head. Damon and the others knew nothing about the moonstone or any curse – either the fabled Curse of the Sun and the Moon or the other one, the real one, and she wasn't about to open Pandora's Box by spilling about the moonstone now missing from the velvet-lined ivory box. But she remembered the box, and the stone that resided in it; but it was gone, now, and she checked all Tyler's hiding-spots, frowning when she came up empty. Even his stash had been wiped out.

"Oh," she breathed, and Damon rolled his eyes again, sighing, as she lowered her arms, staring into the middle-distance.

" _What_?" he asked again, this time impatiently.

"She bartered it," she breathed. Of course. The moonstone. The fire. The lack of evidence of Lockwood journals – why would they want it all written down; the other Founders might have gotten their hands on the truth. ' _The_ _town archives don't breathe a hint of it but he was the most sadistic slave-owner for a hundred miles… I saw piles of them in pieces once'_ , she remembered Damon telling her the other day. What she had read in Vera's diaries, remembering the white stone, she sighed and a tiny smile lingered on her lips. _You sly bitch_ , she thought.

"What're you mumbling about?"

"You burned the Lockwood plantation to the ground – what about this house? George Lockwood wouldn't have had anything to do with it being built?"

"Actually, he commissioned it," Damon said, shrugging. "His parents still lived on the plantation, the family wanted to continue acquiring more and more land – which they did. Took all the land owned by the vampires."

"So, what kind of person was George? I mean," she added, when Damon frowned disconcertedly, "if you could get inside his mind, where would he hide things? Things he didn't want anyone else to see?"

"When we were kids, we used to climb trees in the woods," Damon said, his voice gentle and faraway. "George could climb higher than anyone, he used to love goading us from the topmost branches, convinced us there were secrets up there we'd never learn because we couldn't climb high enough." Giulia glanced up, seeing through the ceiling into the attic. She had never been up there, Carol, and not the Mayor, had never allowed it. She sighed heavily.

"I hope you hadn't planned out your evening," she said, replacing everything into the safe, narrowing her eyes at the books Damon had stacked haphazardly back on the bookshelves. "Put those back in alphabetical order, Carol will know someone's been in here."

"Alright, Schoolmarm," Damon rolled his eyes.

"Meet me up in the attic," she said, and spent the next hour scanning boxes, footlockers, coughing over the dusty remains of forgotten furniture. She doubted anyone had been into the attic in a generation: the farther back she went, the older everything was. Record-players gave way to chunky Victorian bassinets and wood-banded trunks she might've found in Hogwarts. Damon appeared, scaring the shit out of her in the dark and the stifling quiet. She whacked him in the chest, but he helped her source antique mid-Victorian furniture he remembered from the old plantation-house, specifically the hulking Chippendale desk that had been in George Lockwood's study.

"This was his," Damon said, clapping an inch of dust off his hands after running his fingertips along an edge of the closed cabinet-desk. It was perfect. The perfect place to hide something. All those cubby-drawers, and Damon's hearing helped them source out more hidden compartments, drawers and cupboards that made Giulia itch to take the entire thing home with her. The heavy Victorian design wouldn't suit her house but it was so full of potential secrets, the idea of it was delightful.

There was nothing in the Chippendale, to her disappointment: but after spending three hours rooting through old boxes and furniture, they stumbled across a metal footlocker – the US ARMY labelling was so faded and the paint so nicked and scratched it was barely visible: Giulia opened it, found a US flag folded into triangles, old photographs and a gun-box. And leather-bound diaries upon diaries. She glanced up at Damon, who was coughing over the plume of dust he had upset by pulling a dust-cloth off a wardrobe. She rolled her eyes, scanning the contents of the trunk. From the quality of the photographs and their content, she would hazard a guess this had been Tyler's grandfather's. He had been a soldier in 'Nam. She rooted through the diaries, finding some labelled 1965, 1968 and 1973, but older ones she had to carefully untie leather cords – the same bookbinder had supplied George Lockwood with his journals as well as Stefan – dated at the beginning of every entry in a clear, neat hand full of aggression, from 1861 to the last, incomplete diary dated 1864.

"Jackpot!" she called, and Damon clambered over an antique rocking-horse to her, squatting down beside the metal military trunk.

"You got something?"

"Diaries from the 1860s, and more from the Vietnam War era," Giulia said, gathering up armfuls of the diaries. There were nearly two-dozen of them, and Damon helped carry the others out. "Hang on," she said gently, as Damon headed for the stairs, but her eyes were on the door to the most luxurious of the guest-rooms. Dumping the diaries on the bed, she started opening drawers and closets; Damon went through the en-suite and checked under the bed.

"Whoa," she breathed, raising her eyebrows as she unzipped the huge sports duffel tucked inside the closet.

"What've you got?"

"Even for me…this is a little kinky," Giulia said, holding up a handful of chains and leather buckles. Damon stared.

"Nothing wrong with a little bondage," he shrugged, turning back to the armoire drawers.

"Have you found anything?" Giulia asked.

"Think so. Here, smell this," Damon said, handing her a t-shirt. She gave him a deadpan look. "Go on!" She inhaled, and glanced up at Damon. Rose perfume – rich, overpowering and decadent.

"Okay, so Katherine wears _Serge Lutens_ , we know they're together, that's not news," Giulia said, shrugging, passing the t-shirt back.

"That just confirms it," Damon said, wrinkling his nose as he stuffed the t-shirt back in a drawer.

"Hang on – what's that?" Giulia asked, as Damon made to shove the drawer closed. A small plastic baggie poked its corner out between folds of clothing; Giulia plucked it out, and raised her eyebrows.

"Vervain?"

"That's not vervain. And it's not pot, either," Giulia said, before Damon could smirk. She carefully withdrew one of the dried blossoms from the bag. " _I_ know what this is." Vera's diary had been very detailed about the appearance of _aconite_ but the colours in her diary had faded over time. Still, this was "Wolfsbane."

"Wolfs – are you kidding me?!"

"Nope," Giulia said, eyeing the diaries on the bed. "This is _aconitum vulparia_. Wolfsbane. And if vervain is toxic to vampires, what is _wolfsbane_ toxic to?"

"You're trying to tell me the Lockwoods are werewolves?" Damon smirked sceptically. "A., if George Lockwood had been a werewolf, I'd've known about it. 2. That's _ridiculous_. There's no such thing."

"Of course there is," Giulia said, frowning. "They're just nearing extinction and know how to cover their tracks – no pun intended."

"And how do you know that?"

" _I_ have friends," Giulia said. "Friends who tell me things – like the fact werewolves are real, and an endangered species. Because vampires have hunted them for a thousand years. Because the bite of a werewolf can _kill_ vampires." She tilted her head to the side thoughtfully. "Might be worth asking your new bestie about it."

"Ric?" Damon frowned.

"Hey, get him on the horn," Giulia muttered, making a phone with her hand and shaking it while she reached with her other for one of the earliest diaries. Damon pulled out his phone, sighing, but dialled Ric's number and put the call on speaker so Giulia could listen in. She sank onto the ottoman at the foot of the bed, carefully opening the earliest of George Lockwood's diaries, ignoring the opening salutations of Damon and Ric's conversation.

"We were hoping you could shed some light on the Lockwood family," Damon said, and Giulia called, "Hi Ric!" toward the phone.

" _Hey, Giulia. Now why would I know anything about the Lockwoods_?" Ric asked.

"Well, you wouldn't – but your dead – not-dead – vampire wife might," Damon smirked.

"Hey, Ric, you told me all Isobel's old research is still in her office at Duke," Giulia said, glancing up from George's first diary-entry, a trickle of unease prompting her to sway the two from contemplating contacting Isobel in person. "That still true?"

" _Yeah…I've been meaning to go down to Duke and clear it out_ ," Ric sighed, and Giulia raised her eyebrows in surprise. For a man still so in love with his wife, still holding onto the hope he could find and/or save her…it sounded like he was giving up.

"You mentioned once she had spent years researching Mystic Falls – I've read all her published works," Giulia said.

" _Most of Isobel's research focused on here, Mystic Falls, was rooted in folklore and legend_ ," Ric sighed. " _At the time I thought most of which was fiction_."

"Like that amazing vampire story," Damon smirked.

"Do you remember reading anything about the lycanthrope?"

" _Werewolves_?" Ric said. " _Actually, yes_."

"No way. Impossible," Damon frowned. " _Way_ too Lon Cheney."

"Damon's not a believer," Giulia said, and Ric chuckled at the end of the line.

"I've been on this earth a hundred and sixty-some odd years, never come across one," Damon said fairly. "If they exist, then where the hell are they?"

"Florida," Giulia said, glancing up with a deadpan expression, kicking the bag of chains so they rattled. "And the Mayor's house."

" _Why do you suspect the Lockwoods_?" Ric asked.

"Because vervain didn't affect the Mayor on Founders' Day but the Gilbert device did – and it affected his son Tyler," Damon said. "And, at the school carnival, his uncle Mason exhibited super-human behaviour when he fought one of the carnival workers, which would suggest some sort of supernatural entity."

"Plus, we found wolfsbane in Mason Lockwood's room and enough chains to keep Houdini happy," Giulia said drily, eyeing the closet and that duffel. She frowned. "Hm. Wonder if he'll be able to scent that we've been in here." She shrugged, glancing at Damon. "Guess the scent of dead-body will mask even my _Georgio Armani_ perfume." Ric chuckled on the other end of the phone.

" _Well, all of Isobel's stuff is still at Duke, all her old research is still there – she's technically still missing_ ," he sighed.

"So, can we get access to it?" When Ric didn't respond immediately, Damon sighed, "Ric, we need to know what we're dealing with. If this wolf-man thing is true, I've seen enough movies to know it's not _good_. It means Mason Lockwood is a real-life Lon Cheney and that little Tyler punk may just be Lon Cheney Junior. Which means Bela Lugosi, meaning _me_ , is totally screwed."

Giulia scoffed. "Tyler's not a werewolf."

"And how do you know that?"

"Because I've been with him on full-moons," she smirked, waggling her eyebrows suggestively. "No fangs – no more fur than usual." Damon crinkled his nose, disgusted Giulia had ever had a sexual relationship with _anyone_ , let alone the 'punk' Tyler Lockwood. Well, better Giulia made her mistakes while she was young, the repercussions could never be astronomical.

" _Well, I need to go and clear out Isobel's things from Duke, I'm sure they'll be contacting me soon about needing the space_ ," Ric sighed. " _As it's spring break I'm free for a road-trip_."

"Shotgun," Damon said, smiling.

"Oh, don't look at me – not that I wouldn't _love_ to be a fly on the wall with the two of you, but I have dissertations due and Caroline has filled every day of spring break with tan-perfecting activities at the Lockwood swimming-hole," Giulia said, raising her hands.

"Looks like it's just you and me, Ric," Damon grinned easily. Giulia sighed, shaking her head. _This is not going to end well_.

* * *

Elena had crashed the road-trip, inflicting her pouting, flavourless presence on an otherwise budding bromance. Damon had texted Giulia all the back from Duke, and Giulia had immediately regretted not ditching Caroline's study-fest in favour of watching Elena getting shot at by a crossbow-wielding T.A. She had laughed, and laughed, and laughed. She'd texted, _That's karma, bitch_. Of course, then Damon had told her _he'd_ taken the arrow for her right in the back.

And she'd manipulated information out of him about Katherine. Bitching and whining about being a good friend, something about friends not manipulating friends, a lot of drama about Jeremy and the ring that had saved his life...and he'd fallen for it – of course, he was pissed and hurt by her actions, her manipulation a little too close to Katherine for comfort. But venting to Giulia via hyper-articulate texts seemed to get a lot out of his system.

In Damon's words, he was " _so over Kathlena manipulation_ ".

And Giulia had spent the day pretending to be studying doing her college homework while she read through the Lockwood journals. Damon was right – George had been a real piece of work. Some of the things he'd written about, sketched, were so distasteful Giulia wouldn't sleep easily for days; both things he had written about his slaves and his wife, she wanted to go back in time to help Stefan tear him limb from limb.

But it answered a few questions she hadn't realised she'd had, confirmed what she had already guessed, and left her strangely disappointed that Katherine was _so_ obvious. She had sighed and watched Caroline across the kitchen-table as she chattered on about planning the junior-prom and their routine for the Classic and how awkward things were with Matt since blowing him off the other night.

Mason (werewolf), Caroline (vampire), Elena (doppelganger). Katherine had it all figured out. Except she hadn't found the moonstone – Giulia felt that with a certainty deep in the pit of her stomach. Only she and Tyler knew about that particular hidden safe, and even if Carol Lockwood knew about the location of that stone, if it wasn't multifaceted Carol wouldn't care. With all the nooks and crannies in that house Giulia found it hard to believe Mason had had the time in the few days he'd been back in his old home to sneak around looking for it – unless he'd been brazen enough to ask. He was still a Lockwood, after all.

But then, Tyler was the kind of boy who'd always kept hold of something because he knew someone else wanted it, even if he hadn't wanted it himself.

And speaking of Tyler – "are you ready to go?" she called, tapping away a few texts. "Full moon waits for no man."

"Alright, jeez," Tyler sighed, strolling out of his bathroom in only a pair of swim shorts. Giulia glanced up but rolled her eyes at the sight. Far too much weight-lifting. Cultivated strength, not indication of a hard manual-labourer. She preferred stocky strength to chiselled skinny torsos.

"So how was the spa?" Giulia asked.

"You were right about those sunrise-warriors boot-camp classes," Tyler grinned. "They were amazing, me and Mason did two each morning, the trainers couldn't believe we could even stand afterward. And Mom really liked the food. And the wine." He pulled a face, shrugged slightly, but didn't say anything as he pulled on a t-shirt, kicking on a pair of sneakers.

"Did she get to relax, at least?" Giulia asked.

"Yeah. It's good we went. Nobody there we knew, Mom didn't have to be the First Lady all the time," Tyler said. "She just chilled most of the time, had a few massages and all that kinda stuff. Got her nails done, had a session with some guy who told her what colours she needs in her closet for her new mayoral wardrobe."

"Blacks, greys and blues," Giulia said.

"How'd you know?"

"Don't you remember Caroline running for Class President?" Giulia chuckled. "I had to talk her out of the Jackie O skirt-suit. She doesn't do things by half-measures." Tyler laughed.

"Yeah. Okay, c'mon," he said, indicating she follow him. "You're not wearing _that_ to the swimming-hole, are you?"

"What's wrong with what I'm wearing?" Tyler sighed, rolling his eyes.

"Nothin'." Giulia glanced down; dark slim-fit jeans, cute flats, a plain black baby-tee. "You've got this whole…Peyton Sawyer vibe going on recently, you know that?"

"Flatterer," Giulia grinned. Peyton spoke to her on an emotional level.

"I'm just sayin' – it's the summer. Lighten up," Tyler shrugged.

"You're just sayin' – put on that g-string bikini and low-rise jeans," Giulia said drily, and Tyler shrugged, grinning, leading her out to his sleek _Mustang_ convertible. It wasn't exactly all-terrain and they had to walk through the woods to the swimming-hole; at least three dozen kids were already there, iceboxes filled with drinks and a grill near the old picnic bench was barbecuing burgers and ribs. The swimming-hole was a staple of any summer in Mystic Falls, for anyone who wanted to roll up – there had been unwritten rules about Vicki Donovan's crowd showing up, they tended to start fights and ruin everyone's good time becoming the obnoxious drunks/stoners. And Duke as a rule went to New Orleans for spring break so they didn't have to deal with _him_ being an embarrassment.

Caroline greeted them with freshly-styled blonde curls, those highlights she'd gotten in Manhattan shining beautifully, a bright smile on her face as the tiny blue stud glinted subtly in her ear, handing Giulia a red plastic cup. She took a sip.

"What the – _Kool Aid_?!"

"Hey, my mom gave me shtick about being liable if anything happens here," Tyler shrugged. "Kinda don't want to upset her right now." Left a little stunned by that one tiny, but uncharacteristically considerate sentence, Giulia shook her head and shrugged, sipping the Kool-Aid lemonade Caroline had given her. Caroline glanced at her as Tyler left earshot-distance.

"You brought your hipflask, right?" Caroline asked, and Giulia chuckled darkly.

"Why, Miss Mystic Falls, you're not asking me to spike your Kool Aid, are you?" she teased.

"I'm just jittery, I don't feel right going to the Boarding House when Damon's not there to ask for blood, I haven't caught a single squirrel, and I'm a little jittery," Caroline said, and Giulia rolled her eyes, sighing.

"He's still trying to push the vegan diet?" she said, and Caroline wrinkled her nose. _That's a yes_. She scoffed. "He's a drug-addict trying to help someone else get sober."

* * *

 **A.N.** : Please review!


	8. Undeserving

**A.N.** : A blank Word document is a very intimidating thing, y'know?

Is it bad that I can imagine Giulia in the Suicide Squad?

Also, after his Argentine Tango (and his Jive) I am in love with Jay McGuinness. You're all invited to the wedding. I should probably listen to one of his songs?

* * *

 **Dangerous Beauty**

 _08_

 _Undeserving_

* * *

"So…bit of an _interesting_ night," Giulia sighed, relaxing into the pillows propped up against Damon's enormous headboard. Her dad had always referred to this room as the "honeymoon suite": reserved for the most special of occasions. Even her dad had never slept in here. This was Damon's room, just as the attic space was Stefan's. She rested her tumbler of bourbon on her stomach and propped her arm behind her head, crossing her ankles. "What're the odds Caroline is attacked by an _endangered animal_ the one day Stefan says, 'Oh, hey, I promise I'll look after her'?"

"Worst babysitter _ever_ ," Damon sniffed. "At least when Zach left you with me he knew I'd let you get bumps and scrapes 'cause it'd toughen you up, not because I was careless."

"A werewolf-bite isn't the same as a splinter," Giulia said, glancing over at Damon. He was stretched out on the other half of the California-king bed, mirroring her body language, eyes on the faded text of his first-edition _Gone with the Wind_. It was almost like a comfort-blanket for him.

"Where is Blondie, anyway?"

"Asleep, in my old room," Giulia said. There had been murmurings about the K-word: she'd forced Caroline to 'fess up. "Her mother's working late this week, she needs somewhere safe."

"Safe?"

"Somewhere Katherine hasn't been invited into," Giulia said, sliding Damon a sly look.

"Don't look at me. This is a no-Piercing zone," Damon said, holding a hand up defensively. Giulia scoffed, wrinkling her nose.

"That's foul," she muttered, pursing her lips.

"So what does she look like these days?" Giulia asked.

"Um…you're aware of what a _doppelganger_ is, right? Identical to one of your besties…er, ex-besties," Damon grimaced. "There's a daguerreotype of her in Stefan's room?"

"Yes, beetle-brain, I'm aware she is physically identical to Elena – I meant style-wise," Giulia said, giving Damon a look.

"What, want to know if you were spot on about those clothes you helped me pick out for her when we still thought she was inside the tomb?" Damon smirked. "Or – what, have you not…you've not _seen_ her yet?"

"If I was more of a narcissist I'd be a little offended she's so far avoided the most interesting person living in this town," Giulia said, eyeing her cuticles with feigned nonchalance. Truthfully Giulia wasn't so much insulted by Katherine's avoidance of her as she was curious – _why_ had Katherine so far avoided approaching her in any context, either threatening or coercive?

"I wouldn't take it personally," Damon shrugged. "She's only _killed_ whoever she's interacted with."

"I know – and she couldn't even get that right with John Gilbert," Giulia sighed. "How hard could that have been, really? And she botched it."

"Alright – _attempted_ to kill. She also went after Bonnie," Damon said, and Giulia grimaced. If she was a nefarious little slut bent on bartering three living souls and a hunk of mystical rock for her freedom, she would have done away with the biggest threat in her way – in her humble opinion, _she_ was that obstacle. She knew too much, was too clever, too quick – too well-connected. Katherine had done her research into Elena, she believed she already knew everything there was to understand about the Salvatore brothers, vain enough to believe she had fashioned them herself… Giulia was an unknown entity.

"Now I'm depressed," Giulia said, pulling a dark face at Damon. "So, how was your day?"

"Well, she may look like Katherine, but Elena is really starting to _act_ like her too," Damon grumbled.

"She's still pissed about Jem, huh?" Giulia sighed, shaking her head. She settled back into the mattress, yawning. "She really needs to get over it. Jem's okay; that's all that matters. Nobody cares about her _ire_."

"She does."

"Tell me about Duke."

"Serious lack of co-eds on campus," Damon complained. "Luckily, Isobel's T.A. was hot."

"Find out anything good – like our new lycanthropic neighbour?"

"Well, supposedly, six hundred-ish years ago some Aztec in the area of Virginia cursed someone – into a werewolf," Damon yawned. "The same curse caused vampires to be vulnerable to the sun. The Sun and the Moon Curse." Giulia scoffed.

"Okay, well, I'm crossing Duke off my list of potential colleges, if the professor of Occult's research-skills are anything go to by…" she muttered.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, for starters, Aztec were _South America_ , as in the continent, not the tippety-topmost point of the 'South'. _Natives_ in the area of 'Virginia' were the Manahoac, Monacan, Nahyssan, NOttoway, Occaneechi, Powhatan and Merherrin tribes, to name a few, although Cherokee dominated the area now known as Virginia as their hunting territory," Giulia said over her shoulder. "And B., the Curse of the Sun and the Moon is a complete hoax."

"And you know this _how_?"

"Because any witch with any kind of credibility could tell you it's impossible to create a curse of such magnitude. We know the werewolf curse runs in the bloodline, it's triggered by death at your hands, taking someone's life. George wrote that little detail in his diary. In any culture, murder is unnatural. The werewolf curse is Nature's way of punishing the individual for that crime – if it's even a curse at all."

"How could it not be a curse?

"Is vampirism a curse?

"You're getting into Original territory there," Damon said, holding up a hand. Giulia pursed her lips; it was her opinion both Salvatore brothers had had intimate dealings with Originals without even knowing it. Although…having re-read Stefan's journals from the early 1920s she believed he had been intimately knowledgeable about who his bed-partner had been. But at least Damon knew what she meant, had himself referenced the Originals, meaning he knew the story of the genesis of vampires, even if he might not believe it.

"My point is, there is no witch or even coven of witches so powerful they could curse every potential werewolf for the duration of their lives, throughout eternity. Turning on a full moon is punishment for murder, it's Nature's way of maintaining a balance – the same way burning in the sun, dying by fire and vervain-toxicity are vulnerabilities that ensure vampires aren't indestructible," Giulia said reasonably. "Nature must have balance."

"You've been going to too many of Miss Sheila's lectures," Damon muttered, nudging her leg with his toe.

"She knows her stuff. Witches have their limitations – you couldn't get into the tomb beneath Fells' Church until the same comet passed over Mystic Falls as in 1864," Giulia pointed out.

"Magic has its own rules, as Miss Sheila says. But none of that explains why you think this curse is a hoax," Damon said.

"Other than the gaps in the logic – I read it somewhere," Giulia said, smiling mildly.

"Where?"

"Veronica Salvatore's diary," Giulia said, glancing at Damon.

"That humungous old tome filled with gold leaf and paintings?" Damon frowned.

"Illuminated manuscript – and yes."

"Thought that was all written in some funky Renaissance Latin code."

"It is."

"And you – of course you broke it. So, what'd old Veronica have to say?"

"Well, it was a fabulous read. Not just pretty pictures. And the subject-matter is unusual for the time, when women were rarely educated and usually kept records of their daily prayers, their children's births, and natural remedies they used for cosmetics, ending unwanted pregnancies, medicines, that kind of thing. I mean, Vera does write about her children and marrying them all off, but that's mostly in her correspondence and in her ledgers of accounts paying for dowries and weddings," Giulia said, smiling warmly at the very idea of that illuminated manuscript. "D'you know – I can't look at Vera and believe she was married _five_ times before she was twenty-three and survived childbirth _twelve times_. Ow. Anyway – besides a lot of contemporary accounts of the rise of the Borgia family (Vera was obsessed with politics) and some toe-curling descriptions and illustrations of her relationship with, erm, her sister Carafina and their lover, a nobleman named Isak… She writes stories about Isak's family, the genesis of the vampire species, and why Isak fled England in 1492, ending up in the Papal court."

"Vera and Cara had a ménage a trois with this Isak guy?" Damon grinned lecherously, then he frowned, "You never showed me any pictures."

"Utter vulgarity," Giulia said sharply, sniffing, hiding a private smile. To be a fly on the wall of _their_ bedchamber! "Anyway, Isak revealed his dirty little secret in 1498, and after he killed her husband, Isak _turned_ Veronica and her sister Carafina, not just so he could enjoy their bed-sport forever, but so the sisters could spend eternity together, safe… He gave them _power_ for the first time, in a world where men controlled every part of their destinies… He also told them about the origin of the vampire species, and about what had prompted his departure from England in 1492."

"Is this relevant?"

"I absolutely think so. One of the stories he told Veronica was about the Original vampire family. Several brothers, and at least one sister lived in England in the latter half of the fifteenth century," Giulia said. "This sister was blonde, incredibly beautiful, and she seduced the younger son of a werewolf clan…he lived with her in a grand house in the English countryside. The story goes that these Originals were all set to break the curse, but there was a complication. The young girl who acted as part of the ritual to break the curse fled."

"What do you mean, part of the ritual?" Damon frowned.

"In order to undo the curse, there had to be sacrifices," Giulia said quietly.

"Mm. Sacrifices," Damon said, glancing at her. His pale eyes examined her solemn face before he sighed, "Already, not good.

"Nope. You said it yourself, witches are crafty with their spells – in order to lift the curse, the same ingredients used to create it had to be sacrificed," Giulia murmured. She had debated telling Damon what she knew about the 'Sun and Moon Curse', and decided on telling him just enough to help her keep the secret from Stefan and Elena. "The vampire-sister had seduced a werewolf, so he could be sacrificed as part of the ritual; the Original family were surrounded by vampires they had created as their court, so they could have their pick of vampires to sacrifice. But in order for the curse to be broken, the witch who performed the ritual had to drain the blood of the doppelganger."

"The doppelganger?"

"The witch who created the curse used a human girl as a sacrifice to give her spell its power. Five-hundred years later, seemingly the first known doppelganger appeared. Nature's way of ensuring the curse could be lifted," Giulia said, plucking at the flimsy fabric of her charcoal tank-top, wishing she had put a sweatshirt on; the days were blisteringly hot and yet it was still early-spring and the evenings, especially in the Boarding House as they had always been, had a bite to them. "According to Isak, the girl was a slut. She wedged herself between two Original brothers, trying to play one against the other…until she discovered her part in the ritual to lift the curse, and she ran. And then she died."

"How tragic," Damon said drily, not sounding the least mournful for the girl's plight. "Let me guess her name… _Petrova_."

"How do you know that?" Giulia asked, her eyebrows raised.

"How did _you_ know that Katerina Petrova was Katherine's real name?" Damon countered.

"I'm not an idiot," Giulia said, shrugging.

"So…a vampire, a werewolf, a doppelganger…" Damon sighed heavily. "So…what does all this mean?"

"Well, Katherine came into town after all this business with Isobel; Isobel might've told Katherine about Elena…one glimpse at a picture, Katherine would have known a doppelganger existed…" Giulia sighed.

"So you're saying…that for this Sun and Moon curse to be lifted, Elena has to be sacrificed in some weird blood ritual?" Damon mused.

"Yeah. Good thing it's not a virgin sacrifice, otherwise –"

"Why aren't you telling Stefan about this?" Damon asked lightly.

"Because he'll strap on the hero-hair and trot off on his white horse to go and slay some dragons," Giulia rolled her eyes. "The best way to keep Elena safe is to keep the both of them ignorant. Otherwise they'll _dig_."

"Ignorance is bliss. So wait, _we_ have to know the secret?"

"Darling, we're far from ignorant," Giulia said drily, sniffing.

"So Katherine knew the Lockwoods had the werewolf gene…she triggered Mason Lockwood's curse and brought him home," Damon said, gesturing with his tumbler of bourbon.

"Makes you wonder how long she's known about Elena," Giulia murmured.

"I turned Isobel two-ish years ago. John must've slipped her Elena's school photo or something before then – I turned her, she found Katherine and _voilà_ ," Damon bit his lip. "Inadvertently set the world's most self-absorbed, manipulative little slut vampire on a path to kill your daughter – how's that for Mother of the Year?"

"Selfishly I can't say I feel too sorry for Elena over the whole thing. Some boxes just shouldn't be opened."

"Did you know what you were looking for when we searched the Lockwood house?" Damon frowned.

"No. Not really," Giulia amended. "We sort of hit a mother-lode with those journals."

"So…a vampire, a werewolf, a doppelganger," Damon mumbled, staring up at his high ceiling. He glanced at her. "Surely there's some big mystical rock that binds the whole thing, isn't that like textbook witchy hoodoo?"

"This kind of magic is _way_ too old to be hoodoo; _that_ evolved in the Mississippi Delta from old African influences. And besides, hoodoo is considered 'good magic' compared to the darker 'voodoo'," Giulia said, deflecting. "This number of people being slaughtered, this is some ancient pagan shit."

"'Ancient pagan shit'. Witchcraft in Three Words, by Giulia Salvatore," Damon smirked.

"I'm just saying – there's no reason to ever slaughter some innocent person just to curse someone else," Giulia said, shrugging. She did wonder to what extent the Original who had been cursed had earned his punishment.

"Okay, so what _is_ this curse, then, if breaking it _won't_ let me frolic out in the UV rays butt-naked as the day I was born," Damon said, and Giulia smirked, laughing.

"It's a curse on one of the Originals, that's all Veronica wrote," she shrugged. "Isak wouldn't give her specifics. Anyway, I hardly think it matters, one way or another. What's important is that we _not_ give anyone opportunity to try and lift the curse, hey?"

"My lips are sealed. They won't hear about it from me. Do kind of feel guilty about lying to my baby-bro, though."

"No you don't!" Giulia exclaimed, laughing. "You lied to him about the tomb for a hundred and fifty years! And, by the way – it was a moonstone. The witch who cursed the Original back when…" Giulia glanced at Damon. "She used a moonstone to bind the curse; Katherine gave it to George Lockwood as part of their deal, him setting up her 'death' in the fire that night. He believed the story put out into the world about the Curse of the Sun and the Moon; he kept the stone safe."

"So…where is it?"

"Tyler has it," Giulia said honestly. "He showed it to me tonight, when he took me down to the old cellar – a werewolf holding-cell if I've seen one. Claw-marks and chains. Tyler says his uncle's been creeping about looking for the moonstone. If Katherine got her hands on it I imagine she'd snatch Elena right on out of here with Caroline and her lapdog in tow."

"Speaking of – think we need to neuter Mason Lockwood," Damon mused.

"You're not going to kill him," Giulia sighed tiredly, rubbing her eyes.

"Giulia, his bite could kill me," Damon said exasperatedly.

"Well, avoid love-bites," Giulia said tartly. "Besides, most legends are rooted in truth; he'll most likely be able to transform only on full-moons. So just try not to make an enemy out of him and go on a bender at the local college on full-moon nights.

"I guess," Damon sighed. "I'm just not up for it lately."

"Elena's lack of personality better not be rubbing off on you, we already have one gormless Salvatore too many," Giulia said, pulling a face. "It is _wrong_ that the seventeen-year-old is living it up harder than the decadently hedonistic Victorian vampire. Come on, embrace your inner Dorian Gray. Let's go and _play_."

"Don't you have term-papers to finish?"

" _Shit_!"

"Wait, wait, wait – tell me more about the diaries we found," Damon said, grabbing hold of her hand before she could dart off the bed.

"How do you know I've read them all?" Damon just gave her a look. Giulia sighed, shrugging a shoulder.

"I don't think George realised anybody but the affected members of his family would ever read these, because he…is not apologetic for what he did. In 1864, a beauty named Katherine became ward to Giuseppe Salvatore. George writes about her exquisite beauty, her smug manipulation of the townspeople, how she had placed herself between the inseparable Salvatore brothers…and how he scented exactly what she was the first moment they met. He _knew_ she was a vampire," Giulia said, and Damon raised his eyebrows. "He knew each and every vampire she had turned; and for a little while, he let them go on killing, because the deaths they caused masked what he got up to every full moon. He was a soldier in the Confederate Army, he'd killed. He'd triggered the curse, and while everyone viewed him as the favourite son, charming, charismatic, every full-moon he endured the curse, the transformation, he _killed_. Ripped bodies to shreds and left the pieces scattered through the woods. Most of the murders were never reported, because they were the Lockwood _slaves_."

"Yeesh. Sounds like my little brother on a Ripper binge," Damon murmured. "Writing everything down so he can relive the kills, one by one."

"I know, right," Giulia said darkly, crinkling her nose. "But here's the part I really found intriguing. George writes about the Founders' Party."

"Ah, the infamous Founders' Party."

"He writes that Katherine confronted him, telling him she was a vampire, and letting him know _she_ knew exactly what he was," Giulia said.

"So Katherine knew there were werewolves running around Mystic Falls in the 1860s."

"More than that, she conspired with George."

"What?"

"George Lockwood was using the vampires as a scapegoat for his own kills. He went to the Founders' Council about the vampires, he had a list of names drawn up of people he suspected were 'demons'," Giulia said. "And he wrote in detail about the deal he had brokered with the vampire Katherine."

"Wait a minute, she made a _deal_ with George?" Damon scowled. "What kind of a deal?"

"He wrote that Katherine wanted to fake her own death. In return for his help, not only would Mystic Falls be rid of vampires, but George would obtain a very valuable moonstone," Giulia said, rolling her eyes. "She claimed its provenance went back to the genesis of the wolf-curse."

"Wait a minute…"

"George wrote that Katherine was instrumental in helping set up the vampires in 1864. She had it all planned down to the last detail. Katherine insisted on a head-count; there were to be twenty-seven vampires burned in the tomb. Names were to be recorded, too. But while the flames engulfed the church, Katherine slipped to the exit under the choir loft, where George freed her," Giulia said, stifling a yawn, and sighed. "He'd arrange for a carriage to take her out of Mystic Falls…but before he let her go, he made sure she held up her end of their bargain. The moonstone."

"She knew the Council were coming for the vampires."

"She practically lit the match herself," Giulia said quietly. "She murdered twenty-six of her friends just so she could fake her death."

" _Why_?"

"I've watched enough television to know you only fake your death for a handful of reasons. And the usual one is when you're running from something… Or _someone_. If the way she treated you is any indication of her regard for other people, Katherine's five-hundred years old, I'm sure her list of enemies is a long one…if she sacrifices her friends for her own survival, I'm sure the world's littered with people who want her dead."

"Add one more name to that list…" Damon sighed, and Giulia watched him for a little while. Like her own, Damon's face revealed little that he didn't want people to see.

"Want to tell me what's going on in there?"

"…I died for nothing."

"You died trying to save her, because you loved her…it's not your fault she's never deserved your love…"

* * *

 **A.N.** : More Giulijah in the next chapter, I promise. I just wanted to get this chapter out of the way first, I felt Giulia needed to tell Damon about the Curse/doppelganger, and it shows her position on things.


	9. Fair's Fair

**A.N.** : She's back!

Things are going to get _filthy_ …

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 **Dangerous Beauty**

 _09_

 _Fair's Fair_

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His appearance broke up the monotony wonderfully. She had spent too many nights eating dinner out in Richmond alone, playing Wei Qi or _Scrabble_ online with Vera or Cara while annotating texts for her _Punk & Politics_ class and accumulating texts on extraordinary historical women for a dissertation she was working on. It was a simple joy, to share a meal with someone. And she looked forward to dinner more because it was _Elijah_ now meeting her at the restaurant. The first time they had met for dinner, she had wondered fleetingly what people had thought, seeing the two of them together, her a teenager, him obviously so much older, enjoying teriyaki donburi, the miso soup she had been craving all week, garlic-chilli soy edamame, pork gyoza and mushroom onigiri – and a chilled bottle of _Prosecco_ – exchanging tiny touches, laughing softly and obviously flirting.

Carefully avoiding the doppelganger in the room.

But he was holding back. She'd seen it the moment she noted the expensive, understated cut of his Savile Row suit. Charcoal colours, a dark silk waistcoat, a beautifully-knotted tie. In preparation for… _this_ , he had literally buttoned himself up. Hidden himself away beneath an exquisite suit. No-one looking at him in that suit would ever look _closer_. It was strategic; he knew exactly what he was doing. In that suit he could be the charming, understated introvert. Nothing more; people wouldn't expect anything but what they saw in front of their eyes. They were both tiptoeing around each other; they were the only two who knew the truth of what was going on. The imminent danger – Elijah was just waiting. So many pawns needed to move by the other players before he could choose his next move.

What had he once told her? A gentleman is simply a patient wolf.

He may not be a werewolf, but he'd picked up the scent of blood and would follow it to the inevitable end.

Giulia was resolved not to _prevent_ it from happening - _it_ being the sacrifice – but to postpone it.

She would do that by any means necessary. And Elijah knew that; they understood each other without having to say anything at all. She was too clever to know there was any way to stop it; he was too invested not to see things through to their natural conclusion. The sacrifice was on both their minds and yet…neither one of them wanted to break the spell and discuss it.

To start talking about the sacrifice was death for their relationship as it had been evolving. It would change everything.

Elijah had not come to Richmond for Giulia. She knew that; so did he. They were both tiptoeing around that fact, scintillated in spite of themselves, anticipating the thrill of the game. The distraction. What was living eternally without a little excitement? And after five-hundred years, a game Elijah had long since put in the bureau had nudged and shifted against the doors until it had fallen out of the cabinet, spilling its contents on the floor, crying plaintively, _Play with me_ …

It was the first time they had met in person without Elijah's extended family partying around them. And it was lovely; Giulia had him all to herself. For a few hours nearly every day. But it was different – how could it not be? They were no longer separated by hundreds of miles, they were not limited to communicating via heart-stopping texts, saucy photographs, illicit conversations in the isolation of their bedrooms, just wicked voices in the dark ordering them to cup and stroke and squeeze and thrust and pinch and writhe, shuddering, breathless and drenched in sweat, legs shaking, heart pounding, aching with emptiness.

It was easy to be intimate when there were no immediate repercussions.

The doppelganger had changed everything.

There was a searing immediacy to everything now. Nothing between them but air – and the doppelganger. And they both knew that some lines could not be crossed, not if they wanted…wanted what they had been indulging in to last past the sacrifice.

Because how could they separate things? Elijah's…being with her; and Elijah's need to see one of her friends, albeit a poor one, bled dry in a magic ritual.

Elijah had arrived in town outwardly patient, calm, as if he had no other motive than wanting to spend time with her. She followed his lead.

They were already playing the game. And it was titillating that they were playing it against each other. It added another level to the playing-field. Another complication to take into account before they made any decisions, weighing the repercussions, calculating for the other's tactics. Thinking twenty not ten steps ahead.

He had moved some pawns, setting things in play; she was more careful, and more filled with dread. How was she supposed to help protect people from _him_ , when they refused to listen to her? Memories of the Gilbert device, Stefan's iron lock around her wrist just as she'd swung the hammer to smash it, had her biting her tongue every time she leaned towards telling Damon everything.

Would he listen?

If Stefan simmered with his brooding hero look, if Elena pouted and fluttered her eyelashes, would _anything_ she said make any impression?

They would ask how she knew this. Why hadn't she told them sooner? Did she trust her sources? Why was she making trouble? Was she _trying_ to break Stelena up? Was she on Katherine's side? Inevitably any argument would turn into Elena's pouted whimpering that Giulia was somehow set against ruining her relationship. And she might just beat Klaus to it and murder the doppelganger herself. And then, oh, what havoc would be wrought on Mystic Falls… If Elijah had found her, she was sure there were minions around sharp enough to realise they had the potential for advancement in a stymied social hierarchy by turning the doppelganger over to one of the Originals…

She was irritated just thinking up the reactions of her 'friends', of Damon and Stefan; she knew she'd probably want to crack skulls if it ever came to a head. Damon might listen, if she told _him_ , alone. And he would tell Stefan, who would try and take control of the situation; the two of them would activate their Wonder Twin superpowers, acting like the "grown-ups" in the situation, cutting her out of the loop, out of any decision-making process. At least until they had made a few too many mistakes and someone had to go in and clean up the mess.

The only person she could count on was Caroline; but she was hesitant to bring Car into this any more than she already was by maintaining her friendship with Elena. And Giulia didn't have it in her to demand Caroline choose. She wasn't that person.

She glanced away from her friend, frowning at the television as Caroline changed the channel – again. Giulia had been making a snarky and hilarious commentary on every show they flicked through, annoying Caroline; it was be a smartass or give in to the desire to murder something as she tried to mediate, via text, the rising tension in the cheerleading squad. The Classic was coming up, and this new Vampire!Caroline turned into a bigger Cheer-Nazi than any of them had ever experienced when trophies – and her reputation as Junior Varsity Captain – were at stake. Compounded by the stress of organising the final details of the upcoming Sixties dance, ensuring everything was on track for the spring formal and making sure things were set up for the two fundraisers chasing at their heels, Giulia's study-session to help Caroline through her pre-Calculus homework had been a little tense.

Giulia feared Caroline's head might explode if she unloaded everything onto her. Imagining her reaction if she 'fessed up about Elijah made her writhe with guilt. She had mulled over the possibilities of telling Caroline everything as she drove home; her _Beetle_ was making a few noises she didn't like, and she sighed as she pulled on the handbrake, knocking the gearstick into neutral before flinging open the door. Though they had had a heat-wave the last few days, by sunset it was very evident it was only spring; there were no cicadas chirping in the woods, and daffodils and primroses glowed yellow in the dying light as she crunched up toward her front-door, a magnolia blossoming beautifully, a breeze bringing a chill to her bare arms as she unlocked the door.

The sounds of a piano greeted her, a familiar concerto played expertly, and she smiled, drawn further into the house by the sound. She had two pianos in her new home, a beautiful upright piano in the den, and the mini-grand Elijah was now sat at, a glass of wine glinting in the light of beautiful, one-of-a-kind chandelier pendants, his top button undone, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, fingers flying deftly over the ivory keys. The afternoon she had invited him in, he had strolled around the house, so tactile, catlike in his unhurried exploration; he had tested the piano-keys, and Giulia had winced. She had moved the pianos into the house but hadn't had time to organise someone to tune them. Elijah had taken it upon himself to do so; she'd sat listening to him play Rachmaninov from memory, awed.

They weren't spending every moment together but Giulia had reasoned that Elijah might as well bide his time in the comfort of her home rather than pacing an empty apartment. It made sure they both knew what the other was doing – they either had to let the other in on their plans, or be extremely clever about hiding them. She paused at the sight of Elijah playing the piano so beautifully. Slipping off her sandals, she smiled and sidled over to him, tucking herself behind him, fingers pushing through his thick dark hair, trailing down the sharp curve of his collar, the top button undone. She smiled, dipping her head to kiss his neck as he finished the last movement with a flourish of his talented fingers.

Oh, she knew just how talented they were. For all its complications, his staying with her was mutually beneficial – and every night when she'd come home from her platonic dates Caroline had organised on her behalf, Elijah would demonstrate exactly why she would never be satisfied with _boys_. They had yet to make the _final push_ , as it were, and he was definitely holding back, and so was she; they had discovered they loved to play with each other, refusing to give in, a teasing, merciless game with the single goal of making each other submit – to beg for it. For what they both desperately wanted; if he couldn't tell she _ached_ for him then she'd pretend she hadn't noticed his fingers trembling as he resisted touching her.

The first evening she had returned from the swimming-hole, overheated from the sun, buzzed from exhilaration and spiked lemonade, _happy_ for the first time in weeks, his features had lit up at the sight of her, his face bathed in the warm golden glow of the indirect lighting and candles he seemed to like. His smile widened as he looked her over, his dark hair shining like molasses in the dying sunlight of the panoramic window overlooking the lake, for the first time since his appearance in Richmond, it…it looked like _Elijah_. Not the _suit_.

"Hello, lovely," she smiled warmly, traipsing over to him.

"You look happy," he remarked, as if this was an astounding development. She beamed at him, and he narrowed his eyes. "Are you tipsy?"

"Nooo," she said, grinning, holding her finger and thumb an inch apart. _Maybe…_ "It smells delicious in here."

"As a guest of indeterminate duration, I felt the least I could do was make dinner," Elijah said, smiling softly. She inhaled the rich, savoury scent. It smelled _divine_.

"What'd you cook?" she asked, glancing over to the kitchen. Whatever it was, he'd cleaned up after himself. Elijah was a man who responded to a lack of control in his own life to maintaining order in his surroundings. It wasn't surprising his appearance was so particular.

"Brisket," Elijah smiled, and Giulia hummed with delight. She smiled fondly down at him, threading her fingers through his glorious hair. He caught her eye, and held it, a teasing smile growing as his eyes flicked to her lips and back, hands on her hips drawing her closer. She bit her lip and grinned, trailing a finger across his jaw, and dipped her head.

"If you were to sip me," she said softly, smiling as she gazed into his dark eyes, "would you get tipsy too?" He chuckled richly, hooking a hand behind her head to draw her closer, pressing his lips against hers. This was him, her Elijah, the one she had danced with all night, stole kisses from while they prepared breakfast, teased Ashlyn together…her _friend_ she had the toe-curling benefits of having excruciating phone-sex with, but a person she liked to spend time with, admired, appreciated his opinions, laughed with and was fiercely attracted to, but a friend, too. They had started out that way, and she had missed _her_ Elijah the moment she realised he had put on his suit. The one he used to keep the rest of the world at arm's length. Including her.

Now it seemed he had warmed up. They broke apart, finally, leaving her breathless, and to mask her shaking hands she reached for the glass of Prosecco he had poured for himself, still chilled. She hadn't taken a sip before he made her shiver, tracing a fingertip along the blurred, pale line across her back from a bikini-string that had shifted while she drove home. She sighed, eyes lulled closed as his hard body pressed against her back, fingertips delicately lifting her hair over one shoulder so he could kiss her neck, making her toes curl with anticipation, their last phone-calls, the time they had spent curled up on a chaise in the drawing-room at the midwinter solstice ball flitting through her mind. Almost panting, thrilled both from his touch and the remnant joy of the sunshine, spending a good day with her friends, relaxed and being…well, a teenager – she had said goodbye to her date and forgotten all about him as soon as she had driven off, smiling happily to herself that she would be going home to Elijah.

He had said so the other day, she would be thinking about him while she was with other men. _Boys_. And she didn't mind that he was right. She minded that her nipples ached, her breasts felt heavy, there was an aching between her thighs, and she desperately wanted to mess up his hair. She broke their contact, turning quickly to press her lips against his, breathless. As ever, he took a heartbeat to warm up; when his surprise had worn off, when he let those walls down, she knew. He let out a tiny moan and cupped the back of her head, tilting for a deeper kiss, drawing her to him. With a gasp, she broke away, shaking her head slightly to clear it, eyes homed on the tiny buttons of his shirt. Those needed to go.

Licking her lips, she focused on those buttons, fingers flying over the lightly-starched cotton. She hastily untucked his shirt from his pants, tearing it from his arms, and blinked, astounded. Delighted, but stunned. Absorbed almost completely by the sight of a shirtless Elijah.

He wasn't what she had expected. She was… _shocked_. Lulled by the crisp suits, she had forgotten…he was _medieval_. And she licked her lips again, eyes drawn to the narrow puckered scar winding wickedly from his right shoulder halfway across his pectoral, almost appalled by the gruesome one winding tauntingly from above his left hipbone, curving sharply inwards and up, then down beneath the waist of his pants, and the faded bluish tattoo covering his left upper-arm. Not exactly tribal, they could be mistaken for that; but they were very old, swirling and angular at the same time; they looked like wolves. A smile suddenly lit her face, she beamed.

"Sköll and Hatí," she said softly, a smile in her eyes as her fingertip brushed lightly against one of the faded blue wolves, desperate to touch him but fighting the urge to drop to her knees and lick that scar that dipped threateningly toward the 'v' gently defined by muscle. His torso wasn't chiseled, Elijah had not turned after spending hours at the gym every day working on his six-pack; he had been living a hard life in a harsh environment, a warrior, a _Viking_. His torso was thick and compact with muscle, but not ripped like he was a _CW_ leading-man, and there was a light dusting of gold-tipped hair across his chest. She locked eyes with him, her smile at once sad and teasing. "Are you still waiting for Ragnarök?"

She'd surprised him, recognising the significance of his tattoo, the warg brothers chasing the sun and the moon through eternity. He flashed his teeth in a grin ever so briefly. She liked it best when he beamed like that, not the dimpling, taunting smile, the charming one he reserved for public, the slightly ironic, patient smile. She had rarely seen him grin but she would always remember when he did; when he relaxed utterly, when he forgot himself, he would grin lazily to himself. In bed was when she saw Elijah Mikaelson beam, relaxed and joyful, truly calm, when he was himself.

Her eyes went to that wicked scar on his hip, winding down under the waist of his trousers. She flicked her eyes up, catching Elijah's glance, and smirked subtly before reaching for his fine leather belt, unbuckling it, licking her lips, aware of her toes curling in anticipation, nipples throbbing, as she unzipped his crisp tailored pants, dropping them to his ankles. Hands either side of her waist on the piano, he leaned in, gently brushing his lips against her jaw, the faint constellation of beauty-spots on her throat, nipping at her earlobe in a way that made her gasp and writhe, awareness shooting through her body. _Not the ears_ , she thought. They had always been so sensitive, ticklish. He kicked off his shoes and socks, she smiled, always fully-dressed, and she panted softly, curling a hand over his wrist, where something cold and metallic bit at her heated skin, as he pressed kisses against her throat, the curve of her neck, his hands resting on her waist, her lower-back.

Her heartbeat rising, pressure-points throbbing deliciously, she trailed her hands over his warm body, the faint scratch of his body-hair, the incongruous silky patches where his scars were raised and warped, the crisp line of hair leading into his black boxer-briefs, she moaned, sighing into his fierce kiss as he held her close, wrapping an arm around his shoulders, slipping her hand into his boxer-briefs. He froze, panting, eyes heavy-lidded as he broke away, rigid as she explored. She smiled gently, licking her lips, exploring unashamedly, and nudged his nose with hers before nipping his lower-lip with her teeth, biting the dimple in his chin, leaving a trail of stinging nips gentled by kisses down his throat, she grinned to herself when he groaned as she nibbled and sucked on his nipple.

Panting, he grinned lazily, setting her back, and Giulia raised her eyebrows inquisitively. "Well, then… Fair is fair." He swept his gaze over her luxuriously, making her skin hum with awareness, and she stifled shivers as he reached a hand round to untie the knots at her waist, nuzzling his nose against hers as he let her dress pool at her feet, giving her a gentle, probing kiss before cradling her head, deepening the kiss with sweeps of his tongue that made her toes curl. He drew back, pinching the fastening of her bikini-top, delicately threading his fingertips under the shoulder-straps, biting his lip as his gaze lowered, something sparking in his eyes as the black fabric fell away, revealing her bare breasts. With a delicate smirk, she shook her hair over her shoulders, hands on her waist, letting him look his fill.

"This is new," he murmured, nibbling his lower-lip as he trailed a hand from her arm to her waist, up to run the backs of his fingers against her left nipple, making her shiver. A delicate gold bar pierced her nipple, two tiny beads glinting in the candlelight, decorating her upturned, rosy nipple, the beautiful swells of her high, full breasts. That piercing drew him like a bull's eye, the delicate gold glint, the throbbing of her heartbeat in those two perfect little pearls, he drew her close in his arms, stroking his thumb over her nipple, that piercing that went through him like a shudder, drawing him back into memories he had long buried away, her smile and her heat and that tiny knowing smirk inviting him to admire her, her demanding kisses keeping him firmly in the present, holding her close, luxuriating in her warmth, the scent of her sun-drenched skin, the excitement and anticipation…the game… Neither of them would give in and yet they both knew what they wanted; and Elijah delighted in teasing her. She gave as good as she got, exciting him.

She shivered as Elijah pushed his hands into her Brazilian bikini-briefs, cupping her ass and pressing her flush against him, moaning as she felt _everything_. He kissed her jaw, her throat, down her collarbone, licked and swirled his tongue around her piercing, making her almost jolt out of her skin, suckling her gently before dipping to his knees, drawing his hands – and her bikini-bottoms – down to her ankles. Body thrumming with awareness, her heartbeat pounding into every aching part of her, she shivered as he freed his hands from her bikini-bottoms, freeing her ankles, before hooking his hand under her knee to drag it over his shoulder, and she gasped and moaned, eyes sliding shut as he leaned in to kiss her. Any embarrassment she might have felt quickly evaporated as sensations overwhelmed her body.

"Elij- _ah_!" she gasped, leaning back against the piano on her elbows, bracing herself as Elijah kissed, licked, suckled, nibbled her delicate flesh, one fingertip teasing her ever-so-gently until she was writhing, breathless, digging her heel into his back, biting her lip to stop from urging him on. Her toes curled and she groaned, writhing, a flicker of anger spreading through her at the wicked chuckle between her legs, Elijah sucked hard, tongue swirling over _that_ spot, and she growled, reaching down to thread her fingers through his hair, tugging, breathless, as he inserted a finger, tauntingly brushing against her g-spot, ever so lightly, not quite enough, and she shuddered as her knees went weak, hating that he chuckled, using his strength to prop her up, keep her pinned as he thrust his fingers inside her, suckling, licking, nipping, until the world shattered.

Floating, she sighed and shivered, covered in sweat, at peace and delicious, a tangible sense of peace flooding her. Utterly relaxed, _happy_. Elijah's soft, satisfied chuckle drew her back to herself, the subtle rasp of his stubble against her inner-thigh, gently kissing her flushed skin, and she blinked lazily, licking her lips. Swallowing, she pushed herself up on her elbows, managing to free her knee from Elijah's shoulder, pouring off the piano to cradle Elijah's jaw in her hands, drawing him up, panting as she placed a kiss on his lips. She tasted herself but didn't care, too relaxed, too _hungry_ , luxuriating in hiss kiss. She broke away, finally, smiling at the look on his face, lulled, heavy-lidded, drugged with desire, and she nuzzled his nose.

"Tit for tat, lovely," she said, beaming dreamily. "It's _my_ turn."

Elijah grinned, chuckling richly, and he linked an arm around her waist, lifting her up as if she was no more than a doll; she wrapped her legs around his waist and kissed him as he carried her over to the sofa. She smiled, drawing back, saw the lazy grin on his face, and smiled to herself.

"I like that," she said softly, as he settled back on the sofa-cushions with her in his lap; she smiled, running her fingertip down his nose. "I like it when you smile." He reached up a hand, curling it around her head, drawing her in for a kiss, and by the time they broke apart Giulia was panting and aching again, writhing in his lap. She broke away, shaking her head and leaning back precariously to avoid Elijah's lips as he sought another kiss, looking hungry.

"I said…it's _my_ turn," she panted, swallowing, and shifted onto the sofa, stretching out alongside him, shimmying down so she was level with hips hips.

"Giulia, you don't–" She gave his fingers a sharp slap as he reached to stop her tugging on his boxer-briefs. But she wanted a taste. She wanted to kiss and lick and nip her way from lips to toes and feast halfway between. She nuzzled the trail of crisp dark hair that shadowed beneath his navel and gave the sensitive skin above the band of his underwear a lick, before biting her lip, pushing her hands beneath the cotton, pulling it away and tossing them over her shoulder, biting her lip as delight spread through her, pricking her nipples, between her legs, _hungry_ again as she freed him, his length thick and swollen. With a wicked smile, she glanced up at Elijah, tucking her hair behind her ear as she curled a hand around the base of his length, and leaned over to brush her lips tauntingly against his, whispering kisses.

"Now…I want to find out just how _patient_ you are, Elijah," she said softly, taunting his previous boasts at being the most patient man alive. He exhaled sharply, his stomach-muscles contracting beneath her lips as she dipped her head, licking and kissing and nipping at that wicked scar, a delicious trail leading to the treats, curving in from his hip, narrowly avoiding his groin, carving sharply from his inner-thigh down toward his knee. It had been a mortal wound; she laved attention on it, shifting to lie on her stomach between his thighs, bringing his knee up for better access, reaching up a hand to tease his nipples, lightly raking her fingernails over the sensitive skin of his inner-thighs, and she _feasted_. Licking, nibbling and kissing, she suckled him, taking him into her, toes curling as she moaned, cupping his tight balls, swirling her tongue around him while she took him into her, letting her lips lave over his length, grazing her teeth ever so lightly, releasing him with a wet pop when he growled and tried _not_ to thrust his hips.

Panting, she eyed him, giving him a wicked grin, and started all over again – taunting him with the most delicate of kisses, with harsh nips that made him hiss in a breath, with wet licks, sucking his tip like a popsicle, enjoying herself – enjoying _him_. Taking her sweet time – he was a vampire; he had all the time in the world; poor man probably regretted boasting that the last time he'd kept _her_ from coming while they had phone-sex. In his agitation, brought to the brink and denied the pleasure of falling over it, the walls he had built up had started to rupture and crumble, the way he dug his heels in, the set of his jaw, his uneven breaths, writhing beneath her and trying to force himself not to, his white knuckles, one fist resting on the back of the sofa, one of his thigh, close enough to grab her hair and hold her there while he spent himself. It was scintillating to watch him struggle, to watch every reaction play unguarded across his features.

She gave his tip a delicate lick, watched his entire body shudder. In the glowing candlelight his eyes glittered, panting, and she smiled to herself, at him as she shimmied lower, curling one arm around his thigh, reaching up to graze her fingernail across his nipple, shaking her hair over her shoulder to give him a better view as she took him into her the final time, making _this_ time the most intense, the time he lost control completely, teasing and torturing and writhing herself as she reached down and gently touched herself, moaning as she savoured him, her toes curling as he pushed his fingers through her hair, shuddering beneath her, gasping and moaning her name, once, before his entire body froze, and he groaned, spilling into her. She swallowed, releasing him with a gasp, and licked him from root to stem, luxuriating with every lick.

Eyes lambent in the dark, his chest heaved as he tried to steady his heartbeat, and she smiled lazily up at him, before biting her lip, resting her forehead against his stomach, toes curling as she writhed; in a second, she gasped and cried out, knees at his shoulders, his hands cradling her ass, and she braced her arms against the sofa as he ravaged her, his tongue and his fingers finishing what she had started, what _he_ had started with his delicious reactions to her tormenting him. He'd held out; she couldn't. She stifled a sob as her body gave in, legs shaking, head bowed against the sofa as he attacked her voraciously, taking out her torture of him on her, making her cry out, gasp, grip his hair in her fist, her entire body shaking as he consumed her. She thrust her hips against him as he tongued her, completely unselfconscious, the game thrown out the window, desperate for his touch, his kiss, wanting nothing more than another orgasm like only _he_ knew how to give her. He lightly slapped her ass, reaching up to pinch her pierced nipple, and she cried out, thrusting her hips wildly, twisting as he fingered her g-spot again, sucking on her clit at the same time, making her go numb from navel to toes, shuddering. The world disappeared again as she collapsed, and he caught her by the waist, drawing her into his arms, tucking her against his hard, warm body, still delicately touching her between her legs, the touch that had broken her now gentling her way back to reality.

She panted, on the edge of consciousness, deliciously at peace with the world, arms woven with Elijah's, their fingers intertwined, hips sprawled across his and gently thrusting as he fingered her lazily, she nestled her head in his shoulder, pressing kisses to his collarbone when she remembered to stay awake, shivering as aftershocks settled in. They stayed that way for a little while, Elijah gentling the intensity that had overwhelmed her with his touch, and she finally writhed, stretching luxuriously, feeling better than she had in a _long_ time, the after-effects of orgasms combined with her relaxed day absorbing sunshine and laughing, and she smiled down at him, punctuating her words with kisses as she murmured, "Now _that_ …was _very_ nice to come home to."

His chuckle was low, sexy, relaxed, and she smiled down at him, propped up on her arms; he reached up, threading his fingers through her tousled hair, framing his face with his hands, stroking his thumbs against her cheekbones, leaning up to place a sizzling kiss on her throat. "I agree. Although, I got the impression you may have a little trouble keeping up, darling." She raised her eyebrows, reaching down to grip him, and he chuckled richly, squirming. "Do you always orgasm so quickly?"

Brushing her lips chastely against his pectoral, she shook her head. He grinned lazily, and she narrowed her eyes. "Don't let that go to your head."

Something had changed. The suit had gone entirely; in its place was her Elijah. He wasn't lost; just hidden. For self-preservation. But she felt it in her marrow; they were uniquely vulnerable to each other. And that could either make them exquisite lovers, or vicious enemies. She knew which she'd prefer, though the idea of testing her wits against his made a delicious shiver spark down her spine. Gazing into each other's eyes, for a moment the rest of the world melted away. If they could have stayed like that, entwined on the sofa, for all time, Giulia would have been content. Happy. But the rest of the world called, scintillating, promising terror and delight, excitement, a game they could play together as well as against each other at the same time. Too exciting to miss out on. They met in a gentle kiss, Giulia wrapping her arm under his head to support him as she threaded her fingers through his hair, slow, luxurious kisses, gentle and searing and intimate.

A tiny _ping_ startled her in his arms, and she looked up, panting, blinking around the candlelit room in a daze. "What was that?" she gasped softly, aware of her nipples tickling against his chest-hair, his hand gripping her ass possessively, his muscled thigh between her legs.

"Mm," Elijah murmured, nuzzling his nose against her jaw, pressing a sizzling kiss against her neck, "dinner." She perked up at that, eyes shooting to the kitchen. The scent of that promised brisket permeated the air, rich and savoury and calling to her. She smiled down at him, suddenly bashful.

"I'm starving." He smiled, sighing contentedly.

"We must keep up your strength," he said musingly. "You won't be any fun at all, wasting away from hunger."

"All the good bits will disappear," she said, his eyes tracking her breasts as she climbed off him. She laughed in surprise and danced away as she felt him pinch her ass. In the candlelight he did look quite wicked, but in a surprisingly intimate gesture, he threaded his fingers through hers as they strolled to the kitchen. Body sated sexually, she now had to focus on her very real hunger, and she watched, fascinated, delighted, as Elijah used pot-holders to remove her Le Creuset from the oven, removing the meat from the broth to create a thick gravy with wholegrain mustard and some flour, setting the potatoes and cabbage to boil while the meat rested – all butt-naked.

"Don't you want an apron?" Giulia asked teasingly, herself still naked but reaching into a drawer for a hilarious apron Cara had gifted her as a housewarming present. Shirtless cowboys in chaps decorated the entire thing, with a brown suede tasselled trim.

"Oh, there's nothing that spatters," Elijah assured her, raising the eyebrow at the apron. It always amazed her how easily they could make the transition from steamy dirty-talk to jokes. She chuckled, dropping it back into the drawer. She picked up a little knife to skewer a potato and check they were cooked through, and sighed and relaxed entirely into his arms as Elijah gathered her up, pressed against her back, his chin resting on her shoulder. Entirely relaxed, _intimate_.

In a thousand years, she would still remember the taste of that melt-in-the-mouth brisket, the rich gravy, the huge chunks of gravy-soaked carrots, the mashed potato and peppery cabbage. She would remember everything about that sunset as Elijah went down on her by the piano, when she tormented him on the sofa, when something happened, and they reached an equilibrium, an unspoken understanding based entirely on their physical intimacy. She would always remember cuddling naked on that same sofa with him after dinner, dozing in his arms, their fingers and toes intertwined, bodies warmed, relaxed, the rich taste of the gravy on her lips as he helped himself to a sweet he had baked himself, the feel of his fingertips brushing up and down her back, her warmth staving off the bite of his natural chill. She would have stayed in that evening forever; and years later she could look back and know it was the beginning. _Their_ beginning. The first pages in a story that would unfold, exquisite and thrilling and full of terror, heartbreak, lust, adventures and people coming in and out of their lives, magic and sparkling wine, parties, warping time, vicious sibling rivalries.

The night that linked them for eternity. Fates intertwined.

She writhed and preened, more relaxed and well-rested than she had been in months, warm and cosy, deliciously at peace. It was barely eleven o'clock; several of the candles had burned low, and she drifted in semi-consciousness, the delicate tinkling of a piano sifting through her mind, aware of one of her heavy blankets draped over her.

For a moment this afternoon, drenched in sunshine with the shouts and laughter of her friends gurgling over the splash of water, the scent of lemonade and burgers on the air at the swimming-hole, she had considered the relief and bliss of someone _else_ having to deal with all this mess – and yet she couldn't see anyone else handling it. Few people knew what she did and she was in the unique position of knowing titbits of information that each interested party knew, and so had composed a more vivid picture of the scenario they were all careening towards without most people's knowledge.

The understanding that she had the power to alter the outcome of this shitty scenario no-one else would see coming gave her a soothing sense of calm, it cleared her mind and allowed her to just get on with things. There was no sense in panicking about the inevitable, or feeling guilty about what she was going to have to do. Someone was going to have to get their hands dirty, and she _knew_ it'd never be Stefan or Elena. And deep down Damon did care what people – what Stefan – thought of him, and was privately hurt that Stefan so easily forgot who his older-brother truly was. But then, Stefan's memory was horrific anyway. And selective. But what he was willing to do as a squirrel-snacking hippie and what he gladly did as a Ripper were two very different things.

Giulia sighed, stretching, preening, and gazed across the room at the mini-grand piano, where Elijah now sat, fingers flitting lightly across the ivory keys.

Cosy in her blanket, she just laid there, listening. It sounded like he was composing something, measure by measure, rewriting things, trying out different notes… She knew he designed and made jewellery, she could remember that cabinet of Fabergé-style eggs and that mechanised starling. She also knew he was very musical, appreciated music more than anyone, but she had never imagined he could _compose_ … She wondered what had inspired him, and smiled to herself, enjoying listening, the way his mind worked, putting the notes together, the composition as psychologically revealing as his suits.

"It sounds pretty," she said softly. He glanced over his shoulder, then played the measures he had been working on in one seamless tune. Delicate, wistful, almost youthful, sweet and surprising and rich, with what Giulia's dad would have called "twinkly bits" if she'd been practicing it. She was stirred by the music, hearing it, strong, entrancing, delicacy and calamity in a dance together, playing off each other, breathless and mesmerising, amusing and powerful and seductive.

He trailed off, playing the simple, sweet melody underlying everything, and Giulia smiled sleepily as she listened, the composition altering, trailing naturally into something that seemed very familiar to Elijah; he played it by heart, perfectly, a concerto, a _love-song_ , she thought, at once wistful and dreamy, romantic, almost hopeful, with an undercurrent that was at once dangerous, scintillating, breath-taking, making her heart skip a beat in fear, tragic and suspenseful and heart-breaking.

If Elijah's soul could be made into a concerto, she realised, this was it. Tragic and heart-broken and hopeful. She listened, and her own heart broke.

* * *

 **A.N.** : The song I imagine Elijah trying to compose is based on the 'Hope Theme' from _A Royal Affair_ 's soundtrack. I don't know about the song he plays at the end, but if you listen to a combination of songs… 'Dance for Me Wallis' from _W.E._ , 'Melody Pond' and 'Tell Me Who You Are' from _Doctor Who_ season six, 'Far From the Madding Crowd Love Theme', 'Boldwood Variation' and 'Hollow in the Ferns' from _Far from the Madding Crowd_ , 'Carnival of the Animals: Swan Song' by Saint-Saëns and 'Courtyard Apocalypse' from HP7, 'I Am Hers, She is Mine' from _Game of Thrones_ season two, and the final medley from _Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2_ is very powerful, as well as 'Primrose'.


	10. Introspection

**A.N.** : Um, anyone else fall in absolute lust with Caspar Zafer when he reappeared at the end of _The Originals_ S03E15? That new haircut? Touch of grey at the temples, that tan, that smirk, the fitted shirts? Just me? Made me _swoon_ such as I haven't since Elijah first appeared at Rose's door. I have plans for them, BTW – Rose and Finn.

* * *

 **Dangerous Beauty**

 _10_

 _Introspection_

* * *

"I wish you'd sit down. Make yourself comfortable," Giulia murmured, her pale eyes on her numerous textbooks, notepads, letters and Post Its all piled on a beautiful desk, her neat glasses flashing the reflected light of her laptop-screen. The perfect reminder of her very _human_ vulnerability. And yet he found it difficult to associate _vulnerable_ with Giulia Salvatore. The strong, mature young _woman_ may be considered adolescent in this time; in any other, she would have ruled duchies, a few children being educated on Voltaire and Rousseau in the nursery already, her husband at her knees, staggered by her cleverness, her maturity. Her elegance.

He glanced over his shoulder at her, working furiously in her library. Elegant was far from how he would describe her outfit – baggy grey pants cut off at the knee, a black tank-top with sinuous racer-back straps, her dark hair pulled into a bun, a highlighter and a pen stuck through it – but there was an intensity to her that made everything else fade away. She was entrancing. He could watch her work for hours – it was the only thing that soothed him.

For a very long time, Elijah had been an expert at hiding his feelings. Lagertha used to warn that still waters ran deep with him, and he knew it to be true; but this situation was different. He was having a difficult time keeping everything compartmentalised. And Giulia's presence alone seemed to help soothe the greatest part of his agitation, the helpless, nauseous feeling, the self-loathing and desperation he had felt for days, trying to reconcile what he had planned.

He had no way of excusing it to himself what he was going to do.

How did one reconcile murdering one brother to rescue half a dozen other siblings? And Gyda…

Were they all worth it?

It was a hateful acknowledgement, but deep in his heart Elijah had _always_ known the truth. _They_ were absolutely worth it. He had worked a thousand years toward his youngest brother's absolution and yet in that millennium Niklaus had consistently proven how unworthy he was of it. That tiny kernel of doubt from Aurore so many hundreds of years ago, he had tucked away, never daring to believe it, hating that deep in the pit of his stomach, he knew. Knew it to be true, and yet feared and hated that truth, had wilfully lived in defiance of that crushing reality for a thousand years in _hope_ …

Niklaus had repaid that faith with dishonour, punishing those who loved him and yet dared try to build a life without him. His ever-growing paranoia had warred with his need for control to the most minute degree – if Elijah let himself believe in that damning truth he had stolen from Aurore's lips a millennium ago, all Klaus' actions to control and torment his siblings, horrifyingly, made sense. As long as Niklaus controlled his siblings, he controlled what they knew of him.

They did not know Niklaus had betrayed them all long before they had ever made that damning vow – the vow he had held over their heads for eternity. Niklaus had forsaken them all in favour of his own needs and desires long before any of them had ever been confident enough to think of striking out on their own.

Part of him was tempted to raise Mikael from that mausoleum in South Carolina, just to allow him to deal with Niklaus. Yet Mikael was crueller still than Niklaus. The massacre in Marseille a millennium ago – remembered to history as a plague that had halved the population of the great sea-port in mere months – had only hinted at the lengths Mikael would go to in his efforts to annihilate the bastard son who so disgraced him. And yet if Elijah reflected on what Aurore had told him, his father's actions…were not unwarranted, as Niklaus had always claimed them to be.

The rage of being cuckolded, as Niklaus believed Father had been, could not last a thousand years. Mikael had not sought revenge for a thousand years because his wife had borne children by another man.

And yet how did Elijah try to explain the punishing dynamics of his dysfunctional family to Giulia, in the hopes she would aid him – or at the very least _understand_ his motivations? Why the conclusion of the millennium had finally spurred him to action against his brother – to attempt to _kill_ one brother in the hopes he could reunite the others. Those Elijah loved, those Niklaus had deprived of life. Because he had to be the centre of attention, like a petulant eight-year-old.

How did he explain to Giulia exactly the kind of villain Niklaus was without pouring every secret he had ever kept to her? And how would she respond to that knowledge, his family's darkest secrets?

He was perfectly able to carry out this task by himself. He had everything he needed, two capable witches with strong motivations of their own; Katerina had done all the work for him recruiting a werewolf, and yet even as a seventeen-year-old scholar Elijah saw in Giulia the potential to become a truly extraordinary woman…a humbling adversary.

Something about her had been niggling at his memories for months, her mannerisms, the glorious resonance of her voice, soft and husky and filled with licentious promise and irony, her extraordinary intelligence – her _education_ – and her incomparable beauty. Those cheekbones and those breasts were the kind Elijah would never forget in another ten millennia.

And, he had to admit it to himself, Elijah…did not want to do this alone.

All his immortal life, but for tiny stolen pockets of time cushioned in his memory like stingless honey-bees nestling their treasure inside the trunks of ancient trees, Elijah had been alone. By his own design, by necessity, by experience having learned better… One day soon Niklaus would resurface and if Elijah failed to kill him all those immediately connected with him would suffer, he had seen it far too many times not to learn from his mistakes, from Niklaus' lack of remorse, empathy.

He knew what would happen should he fail.

His actions must be swift and merciless, as Niklaus would never expect.

Elijah was honourable. The Original with a conscience, upstanding and dutiful, he had a reputation as being the level-headed, clever one, approachable but unyielding, stern and yet forgiving. He valued honesty, integrity and above all loyalty – and he knew that above all things loyalty, _love_ , motivated people far more effectively than supernatural compulsion. It built up empires and tore hearts in two, provoked people to do things they never believed they were ever capable of doing. And yet he had seen it again and again throughout his interminable life; people did anything, no matter their moral scruples, to protect the people they loved. Even if it meant betraying everything they thought they stood for.

Would his brothers and sisters forgive him, would Gyda forgive him, for doing what he knew he had to?

Given what he had forced them to suffer through over the thousand years they had walked this earth, Elijah knew his family – knew they would all, without hesitation, say yes. Yes, they would forgive him.

Perhaps not Rebekah, not fully. She would understand, and her freedom would be staggering to her, and yet she had always been closest with Niklaus. She had a pathological fear of being left behind – a consequence of Niklaus consistently murdering any whom Rebekah dared love, leaving her no-one but Niklaus to turn to. To earn his ire was abhorrent to her – it meant her isolation. A life of her own, _on_ her own? She had been Niklaus' champion long before any oath they had sworn beside Mother's pyre. Loyal to him out of both love and hatred. Rebekah knew she could have no happiness without Niklaus, and yet he frequently stripped her of any happiness she dared seek for herself.

Elijah was determined that never again would Klaus harm their family. He knew he would have to kill Niklaus to ensure that.

So be it.

But explaining that to someone like Giulia… She knew too much already. She was dangerous. If he played this the wrong way she could become a force to be reckoned with – he had no idea what she knew about his family already, but she was unusually clever, too intuitive, and now with her friendships to Carafina, Slater in his Scandinavian internet-café, even Ashlyn, Elijah feared she was too well-connected not to piece together his history. To reveal every pitfall and flaw of his character… He desperately _didn't_ want her to look at him with blame or disdain or hatred in her eyes.

She was too invested in the situation to be coerced into inaction – and yet farsighted enough to realise she could use an ally like him.

And yet there was another danger. There was another ancient, powerful vampire, merciless and selfish, whose greatest flaw was in believing beautiful women could not resist him. Giulia was just such an extraordinary beauty Klaus would be drawn to like a moth to flame, Elijah had seen it too many times, watched Klaus become entranced, reel the girl in, and destroy her. He couldn't help it; his personality was now hardwired to destroy everything he touched. Too many times Elijah had cleaned up the messes, honoured the dead, soothed ruffled feelings, he…took care of his brother. Every awful thing he had ever done, Elijah was there to clean up the mess. And he could name every young woman Niklaus had been entranced by, and then destroyed – through cruelty, paranoia, irresponsibility, narcissism and neglect. Niklaus had always demanded _everything_ of his lovers, secretly desiring them to get him to bare his soul, accept him for all his secrets, and yet disdainful and suspicious when they did.

Elijah _wanted_ Giulia even as he dreaded her involvement with Niklaus – her bond with her friends, her relationship with the notorious Salvatore brothers, her insatiable intelligence were all extraordinary gifts Elijah knew he could use to make his plan move a lot more swiftly than if he struggled trying to approach the brothers so diligent in keeping the doppelganger safe.

With Giulia's influence, and the potion he had acquired centuries ago, surely there was potential for Elijah to convince the brothers, and Miss Gilbert, to allow the sacrifice to take its natural course. The hope of a life after the sacrifice, a life without Klaus in it…even for those who had never met Klaus, his reputation was such that they desired never to feel his influence touch upon their lives.

And yet with the doppelganger's face appearing on social-media, time was running out.

One wouldn't have known it, watching Giulia Salvatore, but then – she was human. And so blissfully young; the world was entirely new to her. She believed she did have all the time in the world. Humans always did – until, suddenly, their time ran out.

He frowned, watching her across the beautiful hand-crafted desk laden with research books, notepads and Post Its, spinning a slim highlighter and pen between her fingers expertly as she read, flipping from book to book, pale eyes zooming across the pages, hand moving fluidly across her notebook. A cup of coffee steamed in the sunlight blazing through the window, and he marvelled again that she was only seventeen years old. He had met hundred-year-old vampires without the level of gravity and maturity she lived by.

Elijah turned away; when Giulia was working there was no distracting her. Nothing to distract _him_ but the fascination of watching Giulia absorb knowledge. He'd learned quickly that there was no hope catching up with Giulia's projects – the moment he tried to immerse himself in what she was researching, she had found the answers she was looking for and had already moved on to four other projects. He used his new surroundings to distract himself, curious about how psychologically revealing Giulia's home was about its owner.

Hidden away in woods owned by her family for centuries, perched on the edge of a small lake likewise owned by the Salvatore family, the structure that had emerged through the trees was not one he had expected. An understated, sleek modern building with traditional themes that had been cleverly designed to blend with its surroundings, gleaming wood and walls of glass giving no hint of the interiors.

Giulia's home was stunningly beautiful, and incomplete. The sheer elegance of it lay in the rich, contrasting textures, moody, romantic tones of grey, navy, charcoal. Polished floors in herringbone, granite and tile, dark, shimmering wallpapers that caught the light of unusual chandeliers, gleaming marble countertops, sleek and modern with a timeless feel to the architecture, high ceilings panelled with wood, hidden coving filled with light refracted to the ceiling, panoramic glass windows just beneath the ceiling in the main living-area bringing in natural light during the day. Different areas of the open-plan living quarters were sectioned off with different flooring, wallpapers and ceiling finishes blending seamlessly into each other very cleverly. The beautiful parquet floors, the unusual tree-stump coffee-table, a driftwood and hand-blown glass pendant chandelier in the kitchen above a seamless marble island, the rich glow of copper, added warmth to an otherwise modern house made minimalist by such recent habitation. The architect had worked with the slope of the hill leading to the lake, utilising the layout of the house to create different levels to the house, the trees outside to give both privacy and stunning views for the resident. Everything was elegant, timeless, pared-back, each detail in every room had been painstakingly thought out, traditionalist architecture combined with mid-century modern and contemporary themes, wide open areas, different levels, and elegant lighting, a moody, romantic, stunning canvas already imbued with such rich details for a truly personal feel.

She had barely started to decorate, and with such a stunning building, Giulia's home in itself was a work of art. It had been designed for her by someone thoughtful, who knew her, or had guessed their influence on her, the person she would become. Truly appreciative of the beauty around her, disinclined to fill the beautiful house with _stuff_ but putting as much thought and care into what she did decorate as she did with everything else in her life. There were few pieces of furniture, but what Giulia had picked out were pieces of a timeless design or unusual beauty: a beautiful hand-made desk in neo-Louis style, topped with leather; warm metallic cushions on the tufted cognac-leather sofa in the 'den' with a large fluffy carpet and an exquisite upright-piano glowing golden in light bathing it from above; a glittering absinthe tap on the marble island in the kitchen, lots of glossy greenery and fragrant herbs and delicate flowering plans in the largest, formal room, fresh herbs, a ghost-pepper plant in the kitchen. A beautiful, simple drinks cabinet propped on sinuous legs, opened to reveal a diamond-paned mirrored interior and an unusual pick-and-mix of glasses. A shallow wooden dish of hand-carved spinning-tops, her collection of star-puzzles, unusual vases, an antique hourglass on a swivel and art books decorated the huge tree-stump coffee-table in the formal room, a large model train on a long, narrow table in one corridor, an ornate crystal candelabrum on an antique dresser in another corridor, with an voyeuristic Cecily Brown, Van Gogh-inspired painting hanging above it, drawing the eye with warming, inspiring orangey-yellow hues almost incongruous to the setting.

Elijah could see hints of the atmospheric Boarding House, in some of the things she had obviously taken from her old family home. A crystal decanter; a life-size marble statue of an infant boy; a small oil painting by a Dutch master in an ornate gold frame propped on a polished mid-century modern sideboard with a model Aston Martin DB5; a stunning antique English tea-set glittering in a glass-fronted cabinet; a Faberge box; a matched set of ivory elephants, beautifully engraved; a glittering head-sized chunk of bourbon-hued smoky quartz; a sleek record-player and a large collection of vintage records she had obviously pilfered from her vampire relatives' collections.

It was a far cry from the cluttered Victorian sanctuary she had grown up in, but by no means less isolated than the Boarding House, nicknamed throughout Mystic Falls as "the creepiest place in town". He could imagine the sparse beauty of the building had drawn Giulia, an opportunity to start afresh, build something of her own rather than work with what she had inherited in the Boarding House, trying to leave a mark on something that had a personality of its own, transcending the generations it had been built for. She had left that sprawling mansion to the relatives who so clearly loved it more than she did. He supposed the Boarding House had seemed like home to them far longer than it had to Giulia, but it was a shame she had been run out of her home by unfeeling relatives. He knew that sensation far too well. Only he hadn't had a haven like this to embrace as his own. A thousand years ago he had found some sanctuary in a medieval castle – only after being removed from its dungeons and invited to live as a guest of the noble family who ruled the surrounding lands. As ever, if he dared let thoughts of the Countess sift through his consciousness, or when they sprang up, unbidden, unexpected, knocking him over, he felt it like a sucker-punch, it caught his breath, seized his heart, made his knees weak, simultaneously filled his chest with a burning, cramping ache and left it void of anything, weightless and disoriented. The first woman he had ever loved as a vampire – as such no other woman could ever live up to her. As a vampire his emotions had been heightened exponentially; and his mother had always been so afraid of how deep the still waters ran with him, too like her not to realise the danger of how much he felt everything. Even if he rarely let it show.

Of all of his siblings, Elijah had always been afraid he was most like their mother. Willing to go to any extreme to protect his family…

It had been a long time since he had allowed thoughts of Lucrezia out of the neat box he had painstakingly, over many decades, tucked them into. But it was the single photograph of a younger couple, grinning lazily in each other's arms on a rope-swing in a sun-dappled creek, that brought thoughts of her rushing back. The photograph, the woman in it, stomach gently swollen with pregnancy, Elijah had little more than glanced at her face before doing a double-take, at first thinking it was her, Lucrezia – then, possibly Giulia herself, before he noticed the bump of a child growing, promising… It wasn't Lucrezia, and it wasn't Giulia either, for all they looked so similar. He swallowed the lump in his throat, blinked eyes dazed from memory and shock, and focused on the features, so familiar and yet at the same time, alien. This was not Giulia in the photograph, but Giulia's resemblance to the two people, man and wife – a narrow gold band glinted on the woman's finger with a single pearl he recognised from Giulia's own hand, was staggering. It was commonly accepted that it was _eerie_ Giulia looked so like her great-grandfather, several generations removed, they could be twins. But Giulia clearly got a good deal of her looks from her mother; on Giulia her mother's bone-structure had been sharpened, much more intense, striking in her own way from her mother's beauty, her cheekbones were extraordinary, eyes paler and more cutting than her mother's blazing dark-sapphire jewels. Giulia had the shape of her father's eyebrows and lips, softened by the lush plumpness of her mother's, her mother's beautiful fingers but her father's large, clever hands. He peered closer at the old photograph – he guessed Giulia had the exact same beauty-spots peppering her chest that her mother's dress revealed, and he knew she had those three small moles on her left arm that her father had. Unlike her mother, Giulia's skin was not a rich olive, she was fair as her father with her mother's dark hair. Her father's pale eyes made prettier, her mother's full dark lashes.

It was astonishing to see the exquisite mixture of mother and father mingled in their child, the gamble with genetics, the _chance_ – out of millions of options, what they had created together was _Giulia_. Their likenesses combined, perfected and polished, made unique. He could see her in them, though they were both gone… His stomach ached, a hollow pang he felt in his numb fingertips, wincing. It had been so long since he had seen Gyda, and yet her face had not changed in a thousand years. Would never alter. And yet he had forgotten what her mother's face was like. There were no photographs, only memories; and he had a millennium of those all fighting for attention. Some memories shone brightly in his mind, every detail fleshed out and visceral, evoking his senses, or vice versa, his senses flinging him back to ages past; others were murky, intangible, confusing. He remembered her, his wife, by the curve of her nose, the faded ink pattern on her thigh, the raised scar behind her knee, in the shape of their daughter's face, her smile. The two of them, combined to make the last remnant of his wife gifted to the world long after she had left it.

He didn't even have a photograph of Gyda. Portraits, yes. But nothing he could fold into his wallet, nothing to keep saved to his phone, the way humans took for granted their privilege of being able to carry with them their loved-ones' likenesses. So they could never forget.

"Are you okay?" a gentle voice asked. Giulia appeared, peering concernedly at him. He didn't know how long he'd been standing staring at the photograph in his hands, but he hadn't heard Giulia approaching. He swallowed, setting the frame down, nodding mutely. Giulia approached, fiddling with a hair-tie, untying the thick glossy braid draped over her shoulder, threading her fingers through the shining coils, using a comb to create a sharp centre-part. Wandering around her house, he hadn't heard Giulia changing her outfit.

"Mm," he said noncommittally, tucking his hands into his pockets, a bad habit he had picked up only in the last century. Otherwise he tended to fiddle with things, giving away his emotions through trembling fingers or clenched fists. He was a tactile person by nature, he adored _touch_ , he appreciated textures and loved the feel of the organic in a world increasingly plasticised. The grain of wood, the hum and whistle of sheet-metal, the whisper of fur, the chill of granite, the warmth of a woman's body. He inhaled, Giulia's freshly-applied perfume lingering on the air, mingled with the warmth and natural scent of her skin. He did a double-take. She was wearing light makeup, a pretty top. "You look very lovely."

Her smile truly transformed her face, no longer intense, stern. Terrifying. Her smile illuminated her features, pale eyes sparkling like sunlight diffusing through quartz. Her smile softened the intense features, warmth radiating from her, there was a sweetness to her smile that unsettled him. There were many facets to Giulia's personality, and he liked the tender, intimate side of her as much as the feisty, ironic smart-ass, the fun, sexy vixen, the awe-inspiring Valkyrie.

"Thank you," she said, with an unexpected blush. Giulia was not a girl who had grown up being told how beautiful she was. She had been raised knowing she was fiercely clever, talented, loyal, accountable. Mature and responsible; the dead man in the photograph had been a good man. Elijah didn't have to meet Giulia's father to know; Elijah knew it by knowing his daughter.

"Are you going out?"

"Aunt Jenna's is hosting a cookout," Giulia said, with a sigh and a grimace that told him a lot about her feelings on having received an invitation.

"It is nice of her to include you," Elijah said. Giulia spoke of the doppelganger's aunt and guardian, Jenna, with affection; she respected the slightly older woman who had given up everything for her orphaned niece and nephew, balancing her own instincts with the desire to do her best by them, trying to impart her own hard-earned wisdom on two kids who did not want to hear it, all the while she struggled with wanting to be their friend, but needing to be the enforcer, the emotional sounding-board, the warrior fending off every bad thing, picking up the pieces when she couldn't prevent everything falling apart.

"You've not had Jenna's cooking," Giulia said, with a teasing smile. That explained the food Giulia had been preparing at six a.m. this morning: a cilantro-lime cucumber salad; artichoke hearts and homemade aioli; Greek filo-pastry spanakopita triangles with homemade tzatziki; and eggplants filled with fresh feta, spring-onions, cherry-tomatoes and sliced figs, wrapped in foil to be grilled. He had enjoyed himself this morning, sipping strong, fragrant fresh-ground coffee, watching Giulia cook. Just talking. They hadn't discussed the song he had played for her last night, but after he had finished playing, she had looked at him in a way that told him the music had touched every part of her soul, drenched her with some of the same feelings he had been harbouring for a millennia, missing someone he had lost forever.

"Anyway, it's calculated – Damon mentioned to Ric who suggested to Jenna she have a cookout to welcome her old school-friend, Mason Lockwood, back to town," Giulia said, rolling her steely eyes.

"Ah," Elijah said slowly. He knew a little of the Lockwood family, more than Giulia had before stealing the diaries she had been poring over recently. One could not exist within the supernatural community without the oldest supernatural in history learning even a tiny detail about them; a now-dead generation of Lockwoods had triggered their curses during the Vietnam War and made a nuisance of themselves in the Virginia forests for several years. Before they were dealt with. "Damon is running reconnaissance on your new neighbour."

"Since Katherine's _glacial_ rejection of him, Damon has turned his energies elsewhere. Keeps him from getting bored. Any words of wisdom before I head off to mediate _Monopoly_ with a doppelganger, a vampire-hunter, a werewolf and a vampire? Oh, and a tipsy Psychology grad-student?" she asked, now securing tiny gold hoops in her ears. Her earlobes glittered with dainty gold or pearl studs and tiny rings, three piercings clustered together at the far corner of her left lobe, two other piercings connected with a dainty gold chain, her cartilage pierced twice on her right ear with two tiny gold hoops, and two delicate little studs decorating her earlobe. Running his fingertip along her the shell of her dainty ear always made her shudder, and he did it now just to smirk when she did it again. She responded to touch the same way her cat did, curling up, shuddering. She all but purred.

"Keep the liquor flowing," Elijah said, and Giulia scoffed, smiling.

"No worries there. According to Jenna, Mason Lockwood's as big a lush as I am," she said, sighing contentedly. "I knew we were made for each other."

"I see. Moving on already, are we?" he smiled.

"A woman needs options, Elijah," Giulia said lightly, giving him a glowing smile that radiated solely from her eyes. He reached out and pinched her waist lightly between two fingers, making her grin and squirm away, eyes sparkling. "Are werewolves immortal?"

"Their lifetimes are… _extended_ ," Elijah said thoughtfully, "but not indefinite. They are as hard to kill as vampires on any day, they have learned to overcome vulnerabilities. Few ever reach old-age, however."

"It doesn't seem fair, really," Giulia said thoughtfully, giving him a measuring look. "The odds are _stacked_ in vampires' favour. Hunting werewolves is like bear-hunting."

"Bear-hunting?"

"Humans are an apex predator," Giulia mused, "but you still wouldn't underestimate a bear in a fight."

"No, you wouldn't," Elijah said softly, memories whispering at the back of his mind, high snows, the scratching of his wool tunic, the moist heat of his leathers and his own snow-packed furs, and the beautiful, ferocious creatures…

He gave her a sidelong look, taking in her made-up eyes, the hint of blush on her cheeks and the warmth kissing her skin, the sun warming her fair skin where she had spent the last week with her friends at a local creek, the low V-cut of her black halter-top. That low V showed off her lovely throat, the elegant collarbones, the constellation of delicate beauty-spots she had inherited from her mother across beautiful full breasts. A lock of wavy hair swayed beside her face, out of place, entrancing; he reached out, and their eyes met as he tucked the lock of hair behind her ear; her eyes widened almost imperceptibly, body reacting to his touch, trying to suppress a shiver as he brushed his thumb against those tiny piercings. Electricity sparked in the air as Elijah cupped her cheek, never breaking eye-contact; with a tiny moan, she leaned forward, delicately bumping her pretty nose against his, whispering her lips against his in a teasing question. Fingers threading through her hair, releasing the scent of it into the air, he pulled her closer, answering her question with a kiss that made her breath catch, and she sighed delicately against his lips as he fought off a shiver of his own, his entire body warming, coming alive, responding to her warmth, the tiny noises she made, her hands on his hips gripping his belt, thumbs hooked inside the waist of his trousers, and he revelled in it. The warmth of her skin, the taste of her, and his excitement – she had a habit of throwing down the gauntlet, forcing him to be unabashed in taking what he wanted.

They were learning each other. Sending texts, seducing each other over the phone, was very different to this physical nearness; he found it more difficult to engage in intimacy with Giulia now, sleeping in the same bed, than when they had been hundreds of miles apart. _Difficult_ wasn't exactly the word he would use; they were both too conscious of the fact he was here because of the doppelganger, her friend. They had yet to delve into those dangerous, murky waters, but he felt jittery and agitated just at the thought of arguing with Giulia – she wasn't one to say anything she didn't mean, and if he wound her up enough, he was sure they could both do each other a lot of damage.

Perhaps it might be best, they could get everything off their chests.

Last night had closed the distance between them, taken their previous intimacy to new levels. A line had been crossed, he had felt it; they couldn't go back. He hadn't made love to her, they had teased and mercilessly tortured each other, taken the edge off as many times as they needed, but they had yet to be with each other fully.

That was something they would never be able to return from.

And with everything that was about to come, the complications of a fully-consummated sexual relationship with Giulia were too dangerous to think about; Elijah had never been one to sleep with a woman and make no attachments.

And he suspected Giulia, once she fell in love with someone, would continue to love them her entire life.

Such a person was rare, and he could count on one hand how often he had met someone like that. But in Giulia he saw it. Never to be blinded by lust, or by _love_ , but strengthened by it.

And Giulia was already so strong…

* * *

 **A.N.** : I know it's expositional. But I like looking inside Elijah's head – He's a _thinker_. And I have so many ideas for him. One of my sequels for Giulia's adventures will be about the Originals'…well, origins. Their genesis, their time in Marseille (because what they wrote for canon was _Riddikulus_ ). When they were still _young_ , unsure, when they were scared and vulnerable and overwhelmed, when everything was new to them. Oh, it's so delicious in my head…


	11. Neighbourhood Watchdog

**A.N.** : So, there will be some _hints_ slipped into the story from now on, building up to many sequels in the future! _MeliaAlexander_ , you asked about Willem – not yet, is my answer.

* * *

 **Dangerous Beauty**

 _11_

 _Neighbourhood Watchdog_

* * *

The Gilbert house was unusually _tidy_. Scents of _food_ filled the house that had once been the epicentre of Giulia's friendship with three girls she had loved. Their quartet; with Caroline's mother working so many hours, Giulia's father's introverted personality and the girls' misgivings about the 'creepy' Boarding House, Bonnie's dad being, well, _him_ , the Gilbert house was where they had usually ended up hanging out. They'd always had the best Disney movies, Mr Gilbert was a great cook, and Mrs Gilbert had given the girls sage advice while sharing a glass of wine with her much-younger sister while they went through _her_ raging issues.

Just for a moment, hearing the laughter and chatter from the kitchen, the sharp tang of scallions and the smokiness of a barbecue mingling on the sticky air, everyone enjoying yet another day in the unseasonable heat-wave, the house warm and inviting and scented with a familiar perfume, music playing, Giulia blinked and had to remind herself that Mr and Mrs Gilbert weren't there. This wasn't the annual cookout where the girls' families all came together – Giulia's dad usually providing the bourbon and cigars for the men after dinner, Caroline bounding in with homemade cupcakes and a potato-salad.

Mr and Mrs Gilbert were gone.

In their place was the sexy Jenna and her vampire-hunting boyfriend Ric.

 _Mr Saltzman_ during school-hours, Giulia had run into him at The Grill last week, finding him eating alone; glancing around, he had invited her to join him, and they had eaten dinner together. Discussed her classes at UV. Whether she was disappointed to have missed touring the Duke campus; was she thinking about other campus-tours? It had…felt like…

Like she was eating her weekly dinner at The Grill with her dad.

And it made her uncomfortable and heartbroken and maudlin thinking about that.

But he'd been incredibly… _nice_ , he was a decent man and he knew the big bad secret. They'd had a really lovely dinner together…they'd spoken as if he was a teacher in his thirties and she was a seventeen-year-old student. His natural default wasn't to grimly start discussing vampire business; he'd asked about her insomnia, whether she was handling getting to Richmond for her classes okay, if she was having any trouble with students there picking on her for being younger, giving her sage advice on the best coping-mechanisms for juggling dissertations and studying for exams, the best and most disgusting hangover cures he'd ever found, and assuring her she didn't have to feel uncomfortable approaching him if she ever felt like she couldn't keep her head above the water any longer.

It had been alarming, how earnest and wise Ric had been. So like her dad.

There was a reason Ric made such a good teacher.

As Damon lugged the Igloo toward the kitchen, Giulia grinned and hopped over to the island, eyes on the bottle of amber-coloured liquid with a recognisable label – and the ripped surfer pouring shots from it. "You've got the goods! I mean – the good stuff! I meant the good stuff," she said, grinning, reaching for a shot-glass.

"Uh-uh," Jenna said, shaking her head.

"You can have _that one_ ," Ric said, giving Giulia a look even as Jenna tried to take the shot-glass from her. Giulia judo-chopped her wrist playfully, but pulled a face at Ric as he added, "So sip it _slowly_ , you're not having anymore." She pouted, turning to gaze beseechingly at Damon, who dumped the ice-box by the porch-doors and swiped a shot himself.

"Hard to imagine who your role-model and responsible adult guardian is," Jenna said coolly, giving Damon a look. He gave her a glittering smile.

"Hey, I taught her how to ride a bike, how to handle a hangover, and to stay away from fads," Damon said, holding his hands up defensively, with that annoying smug smile of his. "She's pretty much grown. I just sign the permission slips for field-trips."

"No you don't!" Giulia scoffed.

"You're right; I let her forge 'em," Damon said, shrugging unconcernedly. "Quite a little criminal blossoming under our family-tree."

"Takes one to know one," Ric said, with a lazy smile. He pointed the grill tongs at Damon and Mason, who had been watching the exchange with a half-smile. "Damon, this is Mason Lockwood, the mayor's brother – Mason, I, uh, think you already know Giulia already. This is her, uh, what? Cousin?"

" _Ish_."

"The famous Salvatores," Mason said, shaking the hand Damon offered.

"I'm the tits," Giulia quipped. Damon scoffed, giving her chest a pointed look.

"If _that_ wasn't obvious." Giulia stuck her tongue out, and pointed at Damon, smiling at Mason.

"He's the _eyes_. Stefan's the hair; he's the 'nice' one. Is he here yet?" she glanced at Jenna and Ric.

"He called just a couple minutes ago," Jenna said, glancing up from the sink, where she was washing corn as Ric tore off tin-foil to wrap it in. "Said he'd been held up, to start without him; he wasn't sure if he was going to make it till later." Giulia glanced at Damon, who seemed just as surprised as she was; he raised his eyebrows, glancing at Ric, who shrugged.

"So, am I the only 'child' here?" Giulia asked, using are quotations as she glanced pointedly at Damon.

"Elena and Jeremy are upstairs," Jenna smiled.

"Putting on their makeup?"

"I think Jeremy's talking to Ashlyn," Jenna smiled happily.

"Oh, _really_?" Giulia grinned. _When Elijah's away, the little witch will play_ , she thought. "How delicious."

"Why don't you go grab him, he can help Ric with the grill," Jenna suggested, and Giulia nodded.

" _Jeremy_!" she shouted, bounding out of the kitchen. " _Jenna says you're talking to Ashlyn, and if you're having phone-sex, tell her I want in! The hot-weather's made me frisky and Mason's big enough to fend off my amorous advances_!"

She bumped into Jeremy on the stairs, tumbling back a few steps. "And I'm not?" he grinned, slinging an arm around her shoulders as they hopped down the steps into the foyer. "You're happy."

"Tequila!" she smiled, and Jeremy chuckled. The doorbell rang, and something clattered behind them.

"That's Caroline!" Elena's voice called from behind her open door. "I'm still getting dressed – let her in, Jer!"

"I thought I'd just leave her on the porch!" Jeremy called back, rolling his eyes, but he yanked the front-door open, and Caroline beamed, perfectly styled blonde curls bouncing.

"Hi!" she chirped. "I brought potato-salad and cupcakes!" Giulia laughed, taking the platter of lemon-coloured cupcakes piped high with zesty pink lemon-strawberry cream-cheese frosting and little strawberries. It put Giulia in mind of the pick-your-own strawberry fields just outside of town, and she wondered how long they'd have to wait for the local crops to come in.

"Hey," Jeremy smiled, taking the potato-salad. "Elena's still getting ready. Come on in, they're all doing tequila shots in the kitchen, apparently."

"You're on the booze already?" Caroline exclaimed, giving Giulia a disapproving frown, as she strode with them into the kitchen. "And – are you even wearing a bra?"

"Too hot for that," Giulia laughed softly.

"But still –" Again, the disapproving look.

"Jenna, are you with me on this?" Giulia asked, turning to the only other busty woman in the building.

"Oh yeah," Jenna nodded. She was wearing a pink halter-top, and looked very pretty. "Those who don't have to wear underwire can't talk." Giulia laughed victoriously as Elena joined Caroline at the island, tiny, perky little boobs barely making a dent in their tops.

"Okay, let's talk about something else, please," Jeremy suggested, and the _grown-ups_ started getting the food ready, talking football and Mason and Jenna's high-school misadventures.

"–face down, butt in the air, in front of the _entire_ school," Mason laughed richly, as Jenna hung her head in embarrassment.

"And I thought no-one would remember that," she sighed. "That story's almost as good as the one where Mason lost his shorts at the swimming-hole and his _dad_ –"

"Okay, okay, we don't need to go into that one," Mason chuckled good-naturedly. The beers were flowing freely, Jenna was on her third glass of white wine, and it…felt nice. There was an awkward undercurrent from Damon's continued dog-related quips, not-so-subtly trying to goad Mason into 'fessing up to being a werewolf, but other than that, the food was excellent thanks to Ric's Texas origins, the music set a good ambiance, the warmth sticky in the air made it feel like summer had come already, her stomach hurt from laughing at Mason and Jenna's easy banter, and the only disappointment was in the continued ban against Giulia playing any board-games.

"Why can't I be on a team?!" she implored, as Jenna brought out the _Trivial Pursuit_.

"Because it's like cheating, you're like a walking _Wikipedia_ ," Jenna admonished, pushing a Long Island Iced Tea toward her, an attempt to soothe Giulia's ruffled feelings at being excluded.

"I am smarter than _Wikipedia_ , thank you muchly," Giulia sniffed. She pouted, but sipped at the boozy iced-tea through the straw, grinning lazily. She had her feet in Jeremy's lap, where he kept playing 'This little piggy', a sketchbook propped against her shins, she had been given the iPod to choose the music, and she was allowed to be the referee for tie-breakers, and after the _Clue_ board had been packed away, she was given a thousand-piece Van Gogh 'Starry Night' jigsaw puzzle to do while they played _Trivial Pursuit_. She climbed onto the floor, Damon sat behind with her between his legs, sipping his beer, almost cuddled up to her as he leaned over her, one arm wrapped around her, the other helping piece together bits of the edge of the puzzle.

"If I didn't know better, I'd swear you two were twins," Mason said, smiling lazily at them from the armchair, as Caroline continued to take photographs.

"It's _eerie_ ," Jenna agreed, swaying slightly where she sat curled up against Ric. She looked a little bleary-eyed, but grinning happily.

They were all laughing uproariously at Ric's attempts at Charades when Damon's phone started to ring. Given the fact all but one of the people who would ever call him were sat in the same room with him, Giulia glanced up, stealthily downing half his beer while he frowned at the screen, hastily hit 'Accept' and asked Stefan when he was planning to grace them with his presence. The glower on his face only grew more dangerous as he listened to whatever Stefan was saying, but Giulia felt the atmosphere change, he caught her eye with a sharp look, his jaw clenching, and she glanced subtly at Mason while Jenna and Caroline argued technicalities about Elena's miming of 'Back to the Future' and Jeremy helped Ric carry in the banana-splits the boys had been making, bonding in the kitchen over jokes about Jenna's level of inebriation.

"Get that photo up on your phone," Damon said quietly, telling Stefan he'd see him back at the house later. Giulia frowned, but did as asked, bringing up the photograph she knew he wanted to see; the one of Mason with Katherine on _Facebook_.

"Okay, wolf-boy," Damon growled, springing up; in the blink of an eye, before anyone had comprehended what was happening, he had the huge guy dangling a foot in the air, hand clamped around his throat. " _Charades_ was great and all, but you're gonna tell me _exactly_ what you're doing here in town with Katherine."

"Damon, no!"

"What the hell–?!"

"Damon, put him down!" Caroline was suddenly fierce, strong – she'd broken Damon's hold on Mason, who dropped back into the armchair coughing and wheezing as Jenna gaped, still trying to process, and Giulia sighed.

"Well. That escalated quickly," she murmured, sucking on her Long Island Iced Tea. "Damon, simmer down. _Communicate_. What's going on?"

"Apparently Stefan was waylaid by _Katherine_ this afternoon," Damon growled, eyes glowing with rage as he glared at Mason, still coughing and spluttering. Beside him, Caroline looked like a grim-faced security Barbie. Damon glared, towering over Mason in the armchair, his voice low, simmering with white-hot rage, "If Katherine so much as harmed a perfectly coifed hair on my little brother's head I will _peel_ the pelt from her new pet and hang it from the flagpole. Mystic Falls is a No. Werewolf. Zone!"

"Not in this house!" Jenna's voice was suddenly very loud, and very unyielding. She had found her way to her feet, all evidence of her buzz gone. She glared at Damon. "You are not doing this here. You do not come into this house threatening our friends."

"His little slut started it!" Damon said indignantly, pointing at Mason, who looked thoroughly confused, his anger quickly catching up to match Damon's.

"I don't care who started it, I'm ending it," Jenna said sharply. "Sit down and eat your ice-cream before it melts." She took a banana-split from a stunned-looking Jeremy and shoved it at Damon.

"You know, maybe I should've chased after you, you're… _fiery_ ," Damon smirked, his ire completely dissipating as he eyed Jenna like she was a particularly fine bottle of bourbon.

"Call it protective mama-bear instincts roaring to the fore when I found out my kids are neck-deep in vampire drama," Jenna said, her tone glacial, and Giulia saw Mason jump in shock, his eyes widening as he stared at her. She shoved a banana-split at him with a lethal glare.

"You can blame your niece for that," Giulia spoke up, using her finger to scoop up the nut-sprinkled whipped-cream from Damon's sundae.

"Stefan's eyelashes played a part in it too," Damon chided, waving his spoon at her.

"True. No hot-blooded teenage girl can _ever_ resist," Giulia sighed, opening her mouth so Damon could spoon-feed her Chocolate Fudge Brownie _Ben & Jerry's_.

"You really do have a very short attention-span, you know," Caroline remarked lightly, eyeing Mason warily as she accepted her own sundae. She had been eating nonstop since she arrived, taking to heart Stefan's advice to eat to sublimate the kill-innocent-people cravings.

"I'm bored," Damon shrugged.

"In general, or just tonight?"

"In general, usually – although things are looking up. Expensive tequila, feisty drinking buddies, titillating threat of a murderous ex and her dim-witted new pet henchman, good couple things to get me out of bed in the morning," Damon said, with a jaunty, threatening grin at Mason, who was glaring but too well-bred to pick a fight in someone else's home – around the very-human kids left in her guardianship by her now-dead sister. Giulia was impressed with Mason's self-control – considering he was from a family notorious for having absolutely none. She hoped Mason could teach Tyler a thing or two; his temper would be the death of him.

"You know, it's really not good practice to call a werewolf names only a couple weeks before the next full-moon," Mason remarked.

"Oh, that wasn't a dig – just an observation. Anyone who gets into bed with Katherine Pierce is either stupid or delusional," Damon chuckled. "Been there, done that. Had the wool pulled from my eyes the morning I woke up from being shot in the back by my old-man, remembered everything she ever… _coerced_ me to do. Or forget. Of course, you being supernatural I'm sure Katherine used her other… _charms_ to get you to do what she wanted."

"Can we please not talk about this?" Elena grimaced, eyeing her sundae with a disgusted look, setting it down on the coffee-table.

"Oh, let them antagonise each other," Giulia said, opening her mouth again for another spoonful of ice-cream. "It's good for them to get their aggression out in a way that doesn't incur property-damages. My home-insurance is due for renewal soon."

"What do you need insurance for, you have two fanged security-guards," Damon said, giving her a quizzical look.

"You're the reason I _need_ the insurance. You two brawling all over the place, blood on my antique _carpets_ ," she said, narrowing her eyes at him. " _And_ you guys have no respect for Baccarat crystal tumblers."

"There's more in the attic," Damon sniffed. Giulia rolled her eyes.

"Speaking of, I've asked Caroline to spearhead the spring-cleaning at the Boarding House," she said, with an innocent smile.

"Wait, what?" Damon blinked, and Caroline sat up a little straighter, beaming.

"I may have to compel an army," she said thoughtfully. "Do you know how much _crap_ there is gathered in that basement?"

"A few decades' worth," Damon said unconcernedly. "What, you want to hold an auction at Sotheby's?"

"Why not? I'm thinking about long-term investments, and whoring you out won't get me that much," Giulia sniffed, licking syrup off her finger.

"More than you'd get with Stefan."

"True."

"You didn't tell me you were planning anything with the Boarding House," Damon frowned.

"I like to keep you on your toes."

"Just don't touch the stained-glass windows," he ordered.

"Oh, those I'm having restored, BTW," Giulia glanced up. "Hey, do you want to go around the Boarding House and put a pink Post It on anything you particularly want to keep?"

"Gonna ship it out when you run me out of town?"

"I've got the pitch-forks and torches in my car," Giulia said, her face deadpan.

"I'll help," Caroline murmured.

"You're gonna miss me when I'm gone," Damon warned.

Giulia grinned, slurping at her Long Island Iced Tea with gusto. "Wasting away, all forlorn."

"When are you leaving?" Elena asked coolly.

"I _should_ just leave you all to deal with Katherine by yourselves, but me, being the emotionally mature grown-up that I am," Damon said, and Giulia was not the only one to snort in derision, "I've decided to stay and take responsibility for cleaning up my baby-bro's messes."

" _His_ messes?" Elena blurted indignantly.

"Uh, Katherine came back to town professing her _undying_ love for Stefan – sorry, Mase – not me. She's a Kitty-Kat playing with her little mice until she gets what she wants. Which is your BF, BTW, spread out like a buffet," Damon said, with a lecherous grin, aware of how uncomfortable he was making not only Elena but Mason, whose eyes were trained on Damon, his anger seemingly draining away. Damon grinned slowly, glancing from Elena to Mason. "Does it bother you that your significant others have spent the day together? With chains and things? One wonders _what_ they got up to – you know, faking your death and leaving your One True Love behind with a bullet in his back has to leave _some_ emotional scarring. I'm sure Stefan's kissing the booboos."

"Damon," Jenna warned, glancing from her friend to Damon.

"What! Oh, come on, you can't say you _approve_ of Elena dating a vampire," Damon blurted, grinning. "I mean, he's my baby-bro but even I'm a little eeged out by the _math_. Elena's what, seventeen? She could live her life _ten times_ over and still not be as old as Stefan. And let's not overlook the Ripper."

"Damon," Giulia now warned, not bothering to look up from her sundae as she dug for some banana, whipped-cream, fudge sauce and peanuts.

"Withdrawn," Damon smiled easily, hands raised palms-out in defence.

"Just – eat some cake," Caroline frowned, shoving a cupcake at him, smearing frosting over his mouth. "There. Mm, frosting. _Yum_."

"Caroline, don't take this the wrong way, but I will _stake you_ ," Damon said, wiping the frosting away with a napkin.

"And then Giulia would _behead_ you!" Caroline smiled jauntily.

"I still have the guillotine I built when I was seven," Giulia smiled, feeling the effects of the Long Island Iced Tea.

"Aw. I still remember the re-enactment of Struensee's execution. Pity Stef moved," Damon sighed lightly. "Although I don't think the mauling of your bunnies quite measures up to usurping the power behind the Danish throne. Or screwing the Prussian queen."

"God, what are your conversations like when no-one's actually there to feel stupid around you?" Caroline asked, staring at them.

"Tipsier," Giulia snickered, chewing on her straw, and Damon chuckled.

"Um… How do you know Mason's here with Katherine?" Jenna asked, and Giulia glanced up. Damon jumped.

"Oh, did we skip that part?" he asked, and Giulia produced her phone. "My sexy little protégé here Giulia did some digging, as only a teenager in this day and age can – on _Facebook_. Apparently you can find out everyone's shit on here. And so my darling found _this_. Where was that, Mason, Emerald Coast? I mean, I can't imagine Katherine really _fitting in_ in the beach-bum scene but I guess you had something she wanted."

"Why's my relationship any of your business?"

"Oh, it's all our business, when you show up in town around the same time Katherine appears, organising mass-genocide of vampires – including me, BTW – and actually _turning_ the Mystic Queen over there, causing death and destruction and almost-fatal-mutilations of the townspeople," Damon said jauntily. " _Especially_ when Katherine is the exact double of the lovely Elena over there – props for not reacting when you saw her, though. I mean, either she told you she had a double or you're just a better actor than I gave you credit for. I'd go with you being warned by Katherine about Elena – probably about us, too, right, me and my brother Stefan? I mean, Katherine's only come to town pretending like she wants nothing more than to sail into the sunset with my baby-bro. Kinda leaves you out in the cold, huh?" Giulia's phone – the photograph on _Facebook_ – was passed around, Jenna stared at the picture, shocked, Elena's jaw dropped, and Caroline grimaced. "So, what'd she get you for? Hm? What, don't feel like talking? Werewolf got your tongue?"

The fact that they were all so casually throwing around words like 'werewolf' and 'vampire' in front of everyone – Jenna, Ric, Jeremy, Caroline, Elena – it was so surreal it was almost _funny_. A month ago they would never have dreamed of having a conversation like this – but Damon's simmering white-hot rage, their shared secret, Katherine's reappearance, Mason's connection to her, proved a perfect shit-storm to throw caution to the wind and just have it out.

Mason seemed to be working _extremely_ hard not to react to Damon. Coming from a family of aggressive men who couldn't walk away from a fight, douche-bags who were the biggest bullies on the playground, it said a lot of Mason's self-control, and Giulia admired him for not taking the bait, no matter how much goaded him.

But something had happened to Jenna. Learning the secret had turned her spine rigid as tempered steel. She had never been a pushover, had always been fierce about her family, about the two kids now left in her care, and in her sister's house, she refused to let Damon do anything more than push Mason's buttons, while Giulia plied the both of them with alcohol in the hopes they passed out before things could come to blows.

The night ended with Ric escorting Mason to the door while Caroline sat next to Damon, hand clamped over his knee, pinching and making him writhe in discomfort. Only when Caroline had heard Mason's truck pull away from the house did she release him; and they stayed to help clean up the den, the kitchen. Elena had disappeared as soon as she could, punching in Stefan's phone-number to the house phone, and Jeremy sat at the kitchen-table, drawing while Giulia tucked her dishes and things into the Igloo, pointing to Damon and then the icebox to make him carry it out to his car. She had stopped by the Boarding House, afraid her _Beetle_ might not make it further into town toward Main Street; Damon had given her a lift, and Caroline had been dropped off by her mom, so Caroline climbed into the backseat. The top was down, the leather warmed by the sun all day. Despite the rumbling of the engine, it felt _quiet_ after the music and atmosphere of the Gilbert den, the tension and the sugar-high and her wooziness over the Long Island Iced Tea she'd been nursing all night.

"So…did you like _have to_ threaten Mason?" Caroline blurted, after shrieking at Damon that he wasn't to drive off until Giulia had buckled her seatbelt.

"Sure he's used to it," Damon said nonchalantly.

"But don't werewolves hunt in _packs_?" Caroline asked, giving him a look.

"Maybe you should be a little more careful who you upset," Giulia mused.

"Dude's here in town with _Katherine_ ," Damon sniffed. "Trust me, I'm not worried. She's just using him. If he's idiot enough to leave his _pack_ , then he deserves whatever hand he's dealt."

"You could've warned him _away_ from Katherine," Caroline said fairly.

"I did! What, you think me snarking about Stefan to Jenna, trying to appeal to her misgivings, was just about breaking up the Epic Love that is Stelena?" Damon scoffed. "C'mon – Mason took the bait; did you see his face when I mentioned Katherine had come to town mooning over Stefan?"

"I wonder how long he's been a werewolf," Giulia mused. "I'm guessing Katherine had something to do with that… Although I would _love_ to be a fly on the wall tonight when he heads back to her."

"Maybe we should tail him, find out where she's staying," Damon frowned thoughtfully.

"He could probably sniff you out."

"You think?"

"Maybe," Giulia shrugged unconcernedly. "You have heightened senses, it would be stupid to underestimate his. Besides, it wouldn't be that hard to track Katherine down if you really wanted to."

"Wouldn't it? I've no idea where to start looking," Damon said, glancing at her.

"Katherine is used to being waited on – and used to comfort, luxury. She'd want privacy but I doubt she'd _ever_ stay in a sordid motel. She'd need to stay out of sight unless she's purposely masquerading as Elena," Giulia yawned. "And an available food-source that won't draw attention. That limits where she can find accommodation in Mystic Falls – she's not a most-expensive-foreclosure-in-town girl, no matter how much the house cost."

"Most expensive foreclosure?" Caroline asked.

"Bank-owned properties, _no_ trouble getting your foot in the door, pun absolutely intended," Damon grinned lazily, glancing over his shoulder at her.

"Is that what you usually do?" Caroline asked.

"Depends where I am," Damon said, drawing the Camaro into a lurching stop in front of Caroline's dark house. "'Night, Blondie."

"I'll see you bright and early and _happy to be there_ at the picnic," Caroline chirped.

"Oh god, it's on the agenda?" Damon grimaced. "What Founders' event are you dragging me to this time?"

"The Fells donated some land for the newest public park," Caroline said happily.

"Means they don't want to have to keep paying the land-tax," Giulia said drily. "Caroline's signed us all up to help clean up the area and make it pretty."

"Doesn't the county have enough juvenile delinquents serving community-service to do that?"

"Apparently not."

"Fine. But I am _not_ wearing a hard-hat," Damon threatened. He pointed at Giulia. "I don't want _this one_ miming the YMCA song behind my back all day."

"How's a girl to resist?"

"I put you on the grill, and the donations stall," Caroline said, tossing her curls over her shoulder. "Stefan's going to be raking up leaves and building benches."

"What about you?"

" _I'm_ supervising." She gave them a jaunty smile and strutted to her front-door.

Damon frowned at her, watching her disappear inside. Her bedroom-window soon glowed amber, a slim shadow moving about. Damon said thoughtfully, "It's a shame Napoleon never met Caroline Forbes."

"She could conquer Russia through sheer force of will," Giulia agreed, pulling a face at the amber window as Damon put the car in gear and drove off. The Boarding House was dark, imposing, and she didn't stay longer than it took to transfer her icebox into the _Beetle_ , give Damon a brief hug, and promise to text him when she got home.

In a contrast, her house was warm, flickering with romantic amber light, the warmth of the day trapped inside so she just wanted to strip off her clothes. Maybe the draw of Elijah being somewhere inside added to that desire, but she smiled, putting things away in the kitchen before she went in search of him, carrying a cupcake she had swiped from Caroline's leftovers. Elijah had such a sweet tooth.

It wasn't hard to find him. Though the house was large, it was nothing to the Boarding House, and there were only a few partially-furnished rooms. The living-area, her study/library, and her bedroom – well, she had a _bed_ … The bathroom had been designed by Damon, high-ceilinged and magnificent, full of different textures, elegant and timeless and unusual, with an enormous copper tub the focal-point besides the walk-in shower. She paused at the threshold, leaning against the wall, and smiled.

"Bubble-bath, candles, wine," she said softly, and Elijah smiled at her, eyes twinkling in the half-dark. "I didn't know you were planning date-night. You're just missing some music." Elijah smirked tauntingly, reaching to pick up a sleek remote from the little occasional table beside the bath, and dramatic music started swelling, filling the rooms from speakers hidden by a cleverly-concealed, staggering sound-system. " _Ah_. _Turandot_ … I'm glad you're making yourself at home." She gave him a warm, earnest smile as she sidled into the bathroom, perching on the lip of the huge tub, reaching her hand to curl a finger along his jaw in a simple, affectionate gesture, feeling the light stubble scratch against her skin. His dark eyes seemed to glitter, light refracting off the steaming water, making the copper tub glow, and that dimple in his chin drew her eyes to his mouth.

"I brought you something," she smiled, offering him the cupcake with two fingers so she didn't get frosting everywhere. He sat up a little straighter, eyes widening in delight. "Courtesy of the Mystic Queen."

"Would you unwrap it for me?" he asked, and Giulia smiled as she peeled the yellow case away, handing him the little cake. Looking like a four-year-old at an all-you-can-eat sundae bar, she chuckled, her smile warm and indulgent, watching Elijah take a bite out of the cupcake. Relaxed in the tub, surrounded by bubbles, dark wet hair pushed back from his face, she smirked, pulling her phone out of her pocket, and Elijah chuckled richly, unselfconscious as she snapped a photograph.

"A lot of people would pay good money to see a picture of you like this," she said, smiling sweetly, meaning it. She doubted few ever got to see Elijah like this; relaxed, unselfconscious, playful _delighted_. He dimpled as he finished off the strawberry, sucking all the flesh from the stalk, licking frosting from his thumb. She cleared her throat softly, exhaling on a tired sigh, and tucked her hands into her pockets, tired. She just wanted to take her bra off and fling herself into bed. Preferably landing _on_ Elijah. The heat-wave was affecting her more than just tanning her skin; every day she had felt drowsy, contented by the end of it, _happy_ and relaxed. It was dangerous to think it was Elijah and not the sun that had brought out this chance in her, but she couldn't deny there was a direct correlation.

"How was the barbecue?" Elijah asked, sipping his wine before offering her the glass. She sipped it, appreciating the delicate sweetness of the chilled white wine, the way it cut through the stickiness of the air.

"I should've worn a dress," she said darkly, and Elijah chuckled, resting his head back against the side of the tub and gazing up at her through heavy-lidded eyes. The music, the quiet lap of the water as he floated, the light glimmering off the water, caught on the high bubbles slowly disappearing, lulled her into a sense of peace. Not for the first time since she had invited him in, Giulia was struck by how _lovely_ it was to come home to someone.

"The perils of denim," Elijah murmured laconically. "Was everyone on their best behaviour?"

"You know, I'd say that would be a _no_ , really," Giulia said, taking another sip of wine. She preferred Prosecco. "Stabbings, tantrums and ultimatums – and that was just over _Trivial Pursuit_."

"Did you win?" Elijah asked, smiling lazily.

"Oh, I'm not allowed to play," Giulia yawned, glancing down at Elijah and carefully avoiding looking anywhere but his face, the column of his throat, the puckered scar winding wickedly across and down his collarbone, the faded blue-black ink swirled on his upper-arm and shoulder, creeping down his back toward his shoulder-blade. "There's a blanket ban on me playing games in any semi-public social situations."

"And why's that?"

Giulia gave him a sidelong look, then burst out indignantly, "Colonel Mustard _had_ to kill himself! It's the only logical conclusion! But apparently that's _not in the rules_ of _Clue_." Elijah's chuckle was so quiet she almost didn't hear it over the lapping of the water. She sighed, shaking her head. "Anyway…Mason knows we all know about the supernatural, and now they all know Mason's been dating Katherine. There were a few threats about Damon flaying the pelt from his body as a warning to other werewolves, but nothing's resolved… But I doubt there will be any candlelit baths for Katherine tonight – not after Damon told Mason she'd come to town professing her undying love for Stefan… I'd hoped you might be playing the piano when I got home. Or…in bed." Elijah's smile was subtle, teasing, he flicked his dark eyes over her face, licking his lips.

He looked very relaxed; she was tempted to climb in with him. He made that male noise, eyes on the bubbles he was sifting across the surface of the water. Water droplets shimmered on his chest, caught in the dusting of gold-tipped hair, and she braced herself against the sides of the tub, leaning down to kiss him.

"Are you getting out?" she asked, between light kisses. He tasted of wine and lemon-cake.

"Mm-mm," he murmured, shaking his head, drawing her in for another lingering kiss. "I just ran the water…Are you getting in?" Giulia broke away, grinning, and they caught each other's eyes and laughed.

"Alright – but you're not allowed to watch me," she said softly, already plaiting her hair into two Dutch braids, traipsing over to the console for pins, wrapping her braids around her head in a milkmaid braid, sticking them in place with pins. She washed her face free of makeup and pulled off her top, smirking to herself as Elijah watched her in the mirror. She sighed as she unbuttoned her jeans, shimmying her hips out of them and kicking them off. She might have to retire her jeans for shorts if the heat-wave continued… Or skirts. _Skirts, definitely_ , she thought, eyeing Elijah in the mirror, already wanting to nibble his collarbone, his jaw. He watched her shimmy out of her black Brazilian briefs, throwing her sweat-sticky clothes into the laundry hamper in the corner of the room, and she traipsed back over to the tub. "I mean it, you're not allowed to watch me; _no-one_ can climb into a bathtub elegantly." Elijah chuckled richly, and he dimpled before closing his eyes; she was touched when he offered her his hand. She took it, smiling at the warmth he had absorbed from the water, lifting a foot to climb in. She hissed as the water stung. "Have you got lobsters in there? Or are you the blood of the dragon?"

He laughed richly. "The what?" he asked, eyes still closed as she squatted down, wincing as the water stung her bare ass, the backs of her knees.

" _Game of Thrones_ ," Giulia said, tightening her core and grimacing as she settled into the water. As her lower-body acclimated to the heat, her breaths cooling against the water on her bare breasts felt delicious, bubbles tickling her waist and nipples. She had never been more hyper-aware of her own body than with Elijah, and she smiled, resting back against the tub, sharing a glass of wine with Elijah as they discussed literature – he was reading _Far From the Madding Crowd_ again and she had _no_ sympathy for Bathsheba – music playing softly in the background, Elijah's voice rich and resonant as he read aloud, utterly relaxed, drowsy in the lulling water. He set the book down on the little side-table, reaching for her hands, gently pulling her into his lap. She sighed happily, draping her arms around his shoulders, and they kissed lazily, savouring, chase and delightful.

She was growing _accustomed_ to Elijah, infatuated by him, his body, the way his mind worked, his dry sense of humour, his wicked play in bed, his gentleness and ferocity, subtle strength. She had found herself more and more often daydreaming about him…in a way she never had about Tyler, or any of the boys she had been on dates with, even crushes she liked the look of… Elijah was special. She could have sat in that bathtub with him arguing about Chaucer and Machiavelli and JK Rowling for hours, and been happy, sharing a glass of wine, kissing.

Giulia regretted that they _wouldn't_ be able to live like this forever; but it made her smile, determined to enjoy every single moment she had with him.

Outside of the sacrifice, their time together was their own. Only they could dictate how they spent it together; she was determined the curse would not define their relationship.

* * *

 **A.N.** : A long one for you… Hehe. Yeah, I _did_ mean it that way!


	12. Drama

**A.N.** : I'm watching Hot Uncle Mason, and Taylor Kinney is actually a very subtle, great actor. His facial-expressions when he's talking to Tyler about him almost killing Sarah were just… I wish they'd done more with him.

* * *

 **Dangerous Beauty**

 _12_

 _Drama_

* * *

"So, Stefan and Elena are fighting," Caroline informed her, her tone making the statement seem absurd. Giulia frowned.

"Those two don't fight; it's nauseating," she murmured, frowning at a particularly resilient patch of wall she was splattering paint on. She had been at the new park since eight a.m., helping to assemble the purpose-designed _visitors' centre_ ,a small building with a fully-equipped kitchen that people could hire out for events. The Fells – and the Founders, of course – had made contingencies for the use of the land, ensuring it wasn't developed into a business centre or a chain-hotel; it was a public park but could also be hired out for weddings and private parties. The Fells would of course cash in on those occasions. But it was a beautiful venue for a wedding, with the creek trickling romantically into the clear lake. Now, Giulia had to paint the damn building; soft, dove-grey blue. And she was keeping an eye on half a troupe of Girl Scouts dumping compost over the primroses they were supposed to be planting in window-boxes.

There was something fundamentally _wrong_ with eight-year-olds.

"I'm serious," Caroline said earnestly, eyes wide. "Stefan's all moody and Elena almost went into full bitch-mode." Giulia raised her eyebrows, glancing pointedly at the uniform-clad Girl Scouts. Caroline grimaced guiltily. "Sorry," she said, waving awkwardly, her eyes lighting on the compost-drowned primroses. "You guys are doing really well. Have you had any food yet? There's burgers and lemonade." As soon as the gang of _children_ had rushed away, trailing compost and shrieking, Caroline zoomed to the window-boxes. Giulia shook her head, smirking.

"What were they 'fighting' about?" Giulia asked, using air-quotes. She was being honest; except for the one time Stefan forgot to tell Elena he was a vampire, those two didn't fight. They were united in their self-righteous superiority over all. But of all of them, their relationship had weathered the new year, while Caroline's had fizzled off, and Giulia, well…that was something different altogether and she wasn't sure now, painting the visitors' centre getting her nose sunburnt, sweating through her t-shirt and really wishing she could add some Long Island to the sweating bottle of raspberry Arizona Iced Tea, was the right place to let her mind wander into Elijah territory.

"About Stefan spending all day with Katherine," Caroline sighed, tenderly shaking the compost off the buttery-yellow flowers, nestling the roots into wells in the soil and tamping it down. Giulia could remember Liz sitting with them on the porch, showing them how to plant bulbs – assuring them with a little patience, in a few weeks they'd see vibrant green shoots, beautiful bright flowers. Caroline had always been impatient, for the flowers as much as for everything else – to grow up, to go to high-school, to learn to drive and to fall in love, impatient, as if she'd never have the time for all of it.

The irony hit Giulia as she watched her diligent, optimist-to-her-core best-friend salvaging the primroses, beautiful blonde curls shining in the sun.

"Elena's annoyed Stefan spent the day torturing his ex?" Giulia asked, smiling; Damon had filled her in when he arrived this morning, wearing his customary uniform of black jeans and a sharp black shirt with the top button undone, to trim trees and rake leaves and grill burgers. Amongst everyone in their summer finest, he looked superbly incongruous – and utterly indifferent about it. But that was the benefit of being cold-blooded; he'd never feel uncomfortable. Stefan had spent the day yesterday with Katherine; after they'd had a little run-in at The Grill, he had managed to track her down to a quaint B&B on Third Street, where he had seduced her, dosed her with vervain, and compelled the staff to ignore any and all screams and smashing noises.

He'd wanted answers. Giulia could have told him everything Katherine had deigned to tell him, without all the fuss and drama. But it seemed Katherine had threatened everyone Elena loved – she thought Damon's exact words were "She'll kill everyone Elena loves while she watches and then kill Elena while _Stefan_ watches if the two of them don't break things off".

 _Points for dramatic flair_ , she'd thought, when Damon had told her how Katherine had merely snapped her shackles (legit; they kept a set in the basement) and informed Stefan quite casually, before stabbing him with a stake through the kneecap, that she had been sipping vervain every day for a hundred and fifty years. It didn't hurt her. But it had to have given Stefan some form of release while he'd thought he was hurting her. _Stefan = 0, Katherine = 1_. She supposed turning Caroline made _2_.

"I know, I don't get it," Caroline frowned. "There's being a clingy girlfriend, and then there's that." Giulia chuckled, painting industriously. Her mind flashed on to her ex – Tyler – and the idea of Elijah – her sex-toy – torturing him.

She and Tyler had been hanging out at the gym sometimes, they often boxed together if the ring was free. He knew she wouldn't pull punches, and she wouldn't whimper and bitch if he didn't. She might be a little bit annoyed Elijah had tortured Tyler. Not because she hadn't been invited, but because, well, she wouldn't want to see him hurt.

There was absolutely no sense in Elena's argument against Stefan. He was doing what he thought he had to, to protect _her_. "He is patient, I'll give him that," Giulia said fairly, and Caroline raised her eyebrows, unused to her dolloping praise on her lesser-liked 'uncle'. "Not as patient as Damon–"

" _Damon_ \- _patient_?!" Caroline blurted.

"He waited a hundred and fifty years for his girlfriend," Giulia said, smiling. Proud. She snorted, "They may not have been a _celibate_ century and a half, but he was committed. I think that's admirable." She gave Caroline a sidelong glance as her best-friend finished arranging the primroses, sifting compost through her fingers to fill in areas that needed more. "Have you thought about it? In a hundred and fifty years, you'll be painting the third replacement of the visitors' centre."

Caroline blinked, glancing up. She stared at Giulia, lips slightly parted. Giulia smiled, as Caroline whispered, " _Wow_ … I didn't even think of that." Then she beamed, "Yeah, I'll be here – with your great-granddaughter." She huffed and rolled her eyes, throwing her hands up in exasperation. "I know you're freaked out by pregnancy and childbirth but I promise you, it _is_ natural, Giulia! Anyway, you can adopt! You're not really the marrying type."

"Whereas you will look as stunning on your hundredth wedding-day as your _first_ ," Giulia grinned mischievously, a laugh gurgling from her, dodging out of the way of a wayward handful of dirt Caroline flung at her. She threatened Caroline with the paintbrush and a dark shadow fell across them.

"Barbie's getting married? Who's the poor bastard?"

"You, if you don't behave yourself," Caroline threatened, pushing to her feet and dusting off her hands.

"Yeah, you'll get married _here_ , in a hundred and fifty years," Giulia smirked, gesturing around the park with her paintbrush.

Damon quirked an eyebrow, glancing at Caroline. "Keep dreaming, Blondie."

"Hey, tell Giulia that Elena and Stefan were fighting, she doesn't believe me!" Caroline said, taking the cup of lemonade Damon offered her.

"It's true. Bitching each other out – and dragging _my_ name through the dirt too, I'll have you know," Damon tutted, shaking his head.

"What's this?" Giulia asked, perplexed, as Damon offered her a sturdy paper-plate loaded with ribs, corn, coleslaw and cowboy baked-beans.

"Don't ever say I forget to feed my pets," Damon said, handing her the plate and the second cup of lemonade, patting Giulia on the head as she narrowed her eyes lethally.

"No fruit?" she asked, gazing forlornly down at the loaded plate.

"There's peach fritters if you're a good girl and eat everything on your plate," Damon cooed.

She bestowed Damon with a charming, childlike beam, "Thank you, Damon."

"Ugh. So what is this, like a _thing_? Stefan and Elena are fighting so you're like _besties_ again?" Caroline frowned disapprovingly, glancing from Giulia to Damon with a glare.

"You know, Blondie, you really _don't_ have to be jealous of our bond," Damon said, pointing a finger threateningly at Caroline as he linked an arm around Giulia's shoulders, pressing a kiss to her temple, making her crinkle her nose. "I promise you can play with my dark goddess here any time you want, as long as you remember to feed her, give her regular shots of bourbon and ensure she stays away from those god-awful hi-low mullet-skirts."

"Uh, _done_!" Caroline blurted, grimacing.

"I'm going to eat my ribs and ignore you," Giulia sniffed, settling cross-legged on the ground with her plate, gulping down her lemonade, not realising how thirsty she was – or how hot; her skin felt like it was burning, unused to the harsh sun that had Caroline crinkling her nose about the number of sweaty guys. Damon chuckled softly to himself, wandering away. Caroline skipped off, reappearing with a plate of her own, and they sat eating their lunch together. For a brief moment, it felt like old times – the two of them, working themselves to the point of collapse, feasting on a lunch provided by the Founders, in the sun, gossiping and bouncing ideas off each other for their summer vacation.

"Hi girls," a familiar voice said, and Giulia grinned as she glanced up. "Look at this, it's just like old times. Caroline, honey, smile!" Liz had appeared, toting Caroline's little purple digital-camera – the one that hopefully bore no evidence of their Lost Weekend in Manhattan; Caroline had assured her no photographs would ever make it to Facebook, and she had hidden away her scrapbook pages, but still – Liz was Sheriff for a reason. She wasn't clueless. She knew her daughter. Liz snapped a picture of the two of them, smiling fondly at the little screen on the camera. "Aw!" She sighed, smiling wistfully, glancing from Giulia to Caroline. "My little girls are growing up! You left this over by the grill."

"Thanks," Caroline smiled, accepting her camera back, examining the little screen. "Aw, we look cute! This is going in my scrapbook!" Liz chuckled, shaking her head and smiling indulgently.

"I'm glad the two of you are taking a break – all the other volunteers are glad for the reprieve," Liz said, with a smirk at Caroline, who smoothed out her features and tossed her loose curls over her shoulder. "I've been guilted into helping the Girl Scouts – just promise me you'll keep putting on sunscreen and stay hydrated."

"We will," Caroline said, avoiding her mother's eyes. She came across as impatient, almost embarrassed; Giulia grinned at Liz, nodding, and the Sheriff walked away, a slight dip to her shoulders as she approached the gaggle of eight-year-old girls. She glanced at Caroline.

"Did I miss something? Your mom's here – that's the be-all and end-all for you," Giulia said, frowning at her best-friend. Caroline lived for the days she got to do mother-daughter bonding. Because they were so rare; Liz was devoted to her job as Sheriff, and Giulia knew sometimes Caroline felt second-place. Much like she felt about most aspects of her life; she might have hoped Caroline would shed that chip on her shoulder with her transformation.

"Yeah, she's trying to be Mother of the Year, just when I'm trying to avoid her most," Caroline sighed.

"Why?" Giulia asked, perplexed. Caroline raised her eyebrows at her, staring.

"Um, because I turned into a _vampire_ ," she hissed under her breath, glancing around.

"Oh. That," Giulia said, waving a half-gnawed rib idly. "You think she's going to notice your vicious mood-swings and excessive eating and guess you're a vampire? She'd probably just think you're in early stages of pregnancy."

"Gee, _that_ makes me feel better," Caroline huffed. "Just jump right to the 'my-daughter's-a-slut' assumption."

"She's going to find out eventually, Caroline," Giulia said softly. "Unless you want to move in with your dad until college, sever all ties with both your parents so they never realise you haven't aged a _day_ …"

"No, I don't want that," Caroline mumbled sadly. "But I just – from what you told me about the Council I _don't_ think my mom is going to take it well. Like at all."

"You have," Giulia said quietly, gazing at her best-friend. "And you're more like your mother than you realise." Caroline looked perplexed; _no-one_ had ever told girly little Caroline that she was like her strong, independent Sheriff mother. But Giulia saw it; it was the strength and earnestness shining through Caroline since her transformation that came entirely from Liz. Truthfully, Giulia had worried about when Liz finally did learn about Caroline's little secret – at least if Car was pregnant something could be done about it; something _wonderful_ would come out of it. Trying to look at it from the perspective of someone heading the Founders' Council, who had been raised to hate and distrust vampires, who wanted only to protect people, especially her beautiful daughter, well… Giulia could see how Liz's heart might break into a million pieces. Hers had too.

But if proximity to Liz as her surrogate Mommy had taught Giulia anything, it was to not give up. Especially on the people you loved. Brush off the bad stuff, keep your chin up and work hard. There was an innate grace to Liz, a sense of perseverance despite all odds that she had passed to Caroline, whether Caroline realised it or not.

Caroline sighed, dusting off her hands, and offered to take Giulia's empty plate to the trash so she could continue painting. "Uh-oh. Longing looks are being exchanged," Caroline said, amusement in her tone as she glanced across the park at Elena, who was serving potato salad and corn at the lunch station, and Stefan, who was helping to build the custom-designed wooden jungle-gym. "I'd better go, we are on a schedule and I do _not_ want their drama holding everything up!"

"You tell 'em," Giulia nodded, her last rib clamped between her teeth as Caroline took her empty plate away. She picked up her paintbrush and had switched to the roller to paint the wall, the trim already drying in the sun, when her phone started to buzz. She set the roller down in the palette of paint, stooping to pick up her now-warm lemonade, and pulled her phone out of the back-pocket of her tiny denim shorts. Quirking an eyebrow, she glanced around as she hit 'Accept'. "Are we sneaking off to do shots?"

" _Uh, hardly_ ," Caroline said tersely, and Giulia's senses prickled.

"What's wrong?"

" _You remember how to get to the old Lockwood cellar_?" Caroline asked.

"Yeah."

" _I need you to grab the icebox out of my car and meet us there_."

"Us, who?" Giulia frowned. "Caroline, what's going on?"

" _Mason tried to get Stefan and Damon killed_ ," Caroline said, her voice small. " _He put vervain in the lemonade and Damon drank it in front of my mom, she got her vampire Deputies to come and – well… They're dead. The Deputies, I mean, not Stefan and Damon_ … _Giulia…my mom knows_." Giulia blinked quickly.

"Okay. Where are your keys?" she asked, abandoning her station to another volunteer.

" _My car's unlocked_ ," Caroline said. " _Just…hurry. Stefan was shot a bunch of times_ …"

"Well, did you get the bullets out?" she asked, legs aching as she ran up the hill toward the packed parking-lot.

" _Yeah, but, he's just such a mess I don't know if there are more_ ," Caroline said, sighing. Giulia dipped into Caroline's new _Ford_ , pressing the button for the trunk, and hung up the call so she could lift the medium-sized Igloo from the trunk. A flash of purple twenty yards away made her look up, and she stilled, watching Mason Lockwood unlock his truck. Damon had threatened; Stefan had tried to cajole; she would be brutally honest. She closed the trunk without latching it, aware Mason might be able to scent the blood in the icebox, and instead picked up one of the warm Gatorades Caroline kept in her car for after cheer-practice, snapping the cap off as she strode across the lot.

"Hey, Mason," she said brightly, smiling as he jumped, startled. He eyed her suspiciously, slamming his trunk shut.

"Hey, Giulia. You having a good time?" he asked.

"The sun makes me frisky," Giulia shrugged, smiling. "Anyway, Caroline's taken a break so everyone else seems to be relaxing. Are you heading off already?"

"Ice-run for the snack-stand," Mason smiled.

"You can never have too much," Giulia sighed. "Here I thought there was a little too much community spirit around here for your taste."

"Something like that," Mason chuckled. Giulia nodded. "I noticed Tyler's not here."

"Yeah, well, Tyler likes to limit the number of times per year the Mayor can truss him up and show him off," Giulia smiled. "Although he might've been useful putting together that jungle-gym."

"Yeah, well, I'm guessing he's got some pretty girls at home; Carol restocked the bar," Mason smirked, flicking his eyes over her. "How'd he ever screw up with you?"

"It's a mystery," Giulia said lightly, rolling her eyes. "Not really; he was sleeping around. Anyway… I have to get back, but can we talk?" Mason glanced at her, suspicious.

"Oh, I get it; it's your turn, huh?" he asked, dropping the pretext.

"Yep," she said, smiling gently. "The difference is, you're going to listen to me."

"Uh-huh," Mason said, unimpressed.

"I can't do tonight, or tomorrow… How about Tuesday morning? We can go for a run; I know a really good route," Giulia suggested. Mason sighed, eyeing her suspiciously. "I promise, I'll keep my wandering hands to myself."

"How do your friends handle you?" Mason asked, laughing despite himself.

" _Roughly_ ," she smirked.

Mason chuckled, shaking his head. "Alright. I'll see you later, Giulia." Well, he didn't rub it in her face, at least, she thought, glancing over her shoulder to watch him climb into his truck, reversing rather aggressively and driving off. He wasn't boasting to her that he had killed Stefan and Damon; she didn't think he had it in him to brag, be an asshole. From what she remembered of Mason, he was a pretty decent guy. This was just a kill-or-be-killed situation and nobody wanted to be the dead body in the ditch.

She wondered, lifting the Igloo out of Caroline's trunk, how Katherine would react to Mason trying to kill her One True Love. Damon, she wouldn't give two figs about.

He'd made a mess for them, though.

Caroline met her halfway as she hiked through the woods, sweat sticking her long braid to the back of her neck, making her sunglasses slide down her nose, and she regretted not pausing to put sunscreen on her ears when she'd felt them sizzle. In the dappled sunlight under the trees, a gentle breeze cooled her, but she was glad when Caroline showed up using vamp-speed, curls bouncing into place, mouth smeared with blood.

"Thank god," she gasped, taking the icebox from her. "What took you so long?"

"I was arranging a date with Mason Lockwood," Giulia grunted, climbing over a felled tree-trunk.

"What?"

"Yeah, he drove off, apparently to get ice," Giulia said. "He needs to be dealt with."

"Stefan and Damon both want to kill him," Caroline said quietly, giving Giulia an earnest look. Giulia shook her head.

"Can't do that."

"They will. Once Damon stops draining the dead Deputies, they're going after him," Caroline said, all but swinging the loaded Igloo like it was a basket of daisies.

"Leave them to me," Giulia sighed, relaxing in the darkness as the cool of the natural caves and the hewn chambers of the old Lockwood cellar lowered her body-temperature considerably. It was delicious, cool and quiet. Except for Stefan's pained groans.

"Finally," Damon exclaimed from a dead Deputy's neck, glancing up briefly. Giulia glanced around. Damon feeding off of the Deputy; Stefan groaning in pain with Elena fluttering uselessly but concernedly around him; and Liz, hands clasped loosely in her lap, eyes wide, sat on a rocky outcrop, dazed and nauseated, eyes fixed on Damon feeding. Caroline perched by the entrance, eyes flicking constantly to her mother, and Giulia took the icebox from her, flipping open the lid.

"Alright, drink up," Giulia said, handing Stefan a large recycled _Gatorade_ _Sport_ bottle full of rich dark liquid. "Now, it's not strawberry-kiwi, so don't sue for false-advertising, but it is Grade-A Bambi blood." Elena's jaw popped open, looking appalled. Stefan, grimacing, eyed the bottle, the veins beneath his eyes flickering ominously.

"Where did you get deer blood?"

"This is semi-rural wooded Virginia," Giulia chuckled indulgently. "And it's the tail-end of deer season. You'll usually find some guy willing to give you the blood when he's hung his kills. What else is he gonna do with it?"

"Yeah, and there are a bunch of cattle-ranches around here," Caroline said happily. "I don't know why you don't compel the owners to supply you the blood when they slaughter the cows." Stefan blinked, as if the idea had never even occurred to him. It probably hadn't, Giulia thought fairly.

"I thought you don't like animal-blood," he said, glancing at Caroline, a tiny smile on his lips.

"Oh, I don't," Caroline wrinkled her nose, but she beamed. "That's for you – _Be prepared_! Girl Scout motto! Anyway, it was Giulia's idea to look into getting the blood from hunters and cattle-ranchers. I can't just go nibbling on people between blood-drives at the clinic."

"Although some soccer-mommy bitch cut me off this morning," Giulia said, narrowing her eyes. "Almost caused an accident with another oncoming vehicle, then she tries to reverse out of the T-junction and almost clips my front-end and had to lay on the brakes when she realised there was traffic coming up behind her! So you can take a chunk out of her, if you want. Teach her a lesson – bad driving equals _death_."

"That's usually the case even without bringing vampires into it," Caroline said drily.

"Not often enough," Giulia mused, glowering. She had laid on the horn so hard this morning, something she never did; almost dying in a fiery crash wasn't how she'd wanted to start her morning. "It's the bad drivers who walk away. Anyway – drink your medicine, Stefan."

"Drink it all, Stef," Damon sighed, finally crawling away from the Deputy, clambering to his feet, unsteady, favouring one leg. Giulia frowned at his jeans; they were torn and bloody at the knee, the thigh. He'd been riddled with bullets. Not to kill – it looked strategic, almost like torture. Pain, without the finality of death. She tried not to look at Liz.

"This is the most _unfortunate_ situation," Damon sighed, leaning against Giulia, wiping his mouth on the collar of his ruined shirt. "Two deputies dead…and _you_." He sighed, hopping and turning to stare down at Liz. "What am I gonna do with _you_?"

Giulia glanced at Liz. Since Damon's arrival in Mystic Falls, Liz had been instrumental in him ingratiating himself with the Founders, infiltrating the Council, building a _life_ for himself here, where he could be safe. It would be very easy for him to snap Liz's neck right here and now; but Giulia knew, well, that Damon _liked_ Liz… They were _friends_ , whether she was now realising it was on the surface a farce, but Giulia believed Damon saw in Liz what she did in Caroline. That strength, the earnestness. Damon couldn't help _liking_ Liz. He teased her, complimented her, cared when she was upset by Caroline bitching her out, might have felt a niggling guilt at lying to her, because he _respected_ her. Liz was a woman who earned people's respect and admiration. And she had Damon's, whether he had intended to let her get to him or not.

"You won't tell anyone, will you?" Caroline asked softly, fear dripping from her voice. "Mom? … _Mom_? … _Please_. Look, I know that we don't get along and that you _hate_ me but I'm your _daughter_ and you'll do this for me, right?" Silence lingered in the air, tangible and awkward. Giulia glanced at Caroline; this was a lot for anyone to process. This was the woman who had given birth to Caroline, kissed every booboo, taught her how to ride her bike, took her shopping for _that_ dress she wished Caroline didn't want to wear to Homecoming, supported her overachiever daughter while protecting the entire town. "Mom, please. He will kill you."

With a stubborn tilt of her chin, eyes bright, Liz said tearfully, "Then kill me."

"No!" Caroline exclaimed.

"I can't take this," Liz said, evident in her tone how upset she was. Bewildered. In shock. "Kill me. Now."

Damon lowered his head, gazing into Liz's emotional face, the too-bright eyes, barely holding it together. Her daughter was a vampire; Giulia reached out and grasped Caroline's shoulder comfortingly.

"But you were gonna drag it out so painfully," Damon whispered tauntingly, and everyone in the underground chamber jumped, reacting viscerally to Damon grabbing Liz, pulling her to her feet.

"No, no, no, no, no, no, no!" Caroline blurted tearfully, darting forward.

"Damon, don't!" Stefan shouted, eyes wide.

"Damon, please!" Elena blurted.

"Relax guys," Damon scoffed impatiently. "No-one is killing anybody…" He sighed, glancing at Liz, hopping about so he was using her as a crutch, an arm wrapped around her shoulders. "You're my friend… We have to clean this up." He glanced at the two dead deputies, drained of blood to refill Damon's coffers. Giulia wondered how Stefan could sip deer blood in front of Elena, and she _wasn't_ put off… She wondered if Elena would _kiss_ him… Giulia couldn't remember _ever_ tasting blood on Elijah's lips. The fact of the matter was, she often forgot Elijah _was_ a vampire. He didn't tell her how he fed, and she didn't ask. He didn't keep blood-bags in her refrigerator, but he was also keeping a low-profile and wouldn't be snacking on the locals. But she had noted that Caroline had to drink more blood than Damon, who was far older; but she had to hunt _less_ than Stefan. Animal blood wasn't what vampires were designed to live off; she had laughingly compared it to Caroline as trying to charge an iPod with a hamster-wheel.

How much blood did a thousand-year-old vampire have to drink? How often? She didn't even ask whether Elijah was always hungry; if he was, he kept it hidden, locked away tight. Over a thousand years, he had learned to control his appetite… Watching Stefan drain the _Gatorade_ bottle, Giulia sighed; Stefan could learn a thing or two from him.

The 'clean-up' wasn't hard. With a litre of Bambi blood running through his veins, Stefan started to heal; disposing of dead bodies taking less out of him than making sure a fully-trained human under immense pressure, in _shock_ , Stefan was given the duty of disposing of the two dead deputies. They were young; the Council had made contingencies for any unexplainable deaths of those people associated with them. Damon, being a member of the Council himself, knew that. He also knew that the jurisdiction of the Council, like the Sheriff's Department and the Mayor's Office, ended at the county line. What happened five feet over it was not their concern.

It was Damon who took care of Liz. The basement in the Boarding House was bleak but secure, and Damon wanted to ensure she couldn't be tempted to communicate with anyone while the vervain left her system.

Giulia didn't necessarily agree with Damon that compelling Liz to forget was the right course of action, but she wouldn't look her daughter in the face let alone protect them all on their secret. _Yet_ , Giulia thought. This was still Liz; Caroline was still her daughter. And whatever their differences, the two were also very similar. And loved each other far too much. But Liz had found out an hour ago that her daughter had been turned into the one thing she had dedicated her life to fighting against.

It was almost Shakespearean.

"Hey, Jeremy's gonna meet us at the Boarding House; we're supposed to go out for dinner with Jenna and Ric," Elena sighed, putting her phone away. "Apparently Jeremy's got some information on Mason…"

"Like where he is, so I can rip his spine out and present it to him as a gift?" Damon asked, missing Liz's flinch, shocked by his crassness. He tucked Liz into his Camaro, where Giulia was aware of her hands shaking before she clasped them in her lap, seatbelt on, looking stunned.

"You're not going to kill Mason," Giulia said quietly, giving Damon a look.

" _Why_? Is this temperance day? No killing allowed, even if they tried to kill _me_?"

"Mason will have information on Katherine," Giulia said sternly, enunciating. "He may not know why she's here but he'll know more than we do about what she's been up to… Besides, might be a good idea to have an attack-dog on call. Anybody comes to this town we don't want…"

"And by any _one_ you mean uninvited vampires and by 'an attack-dog on call' you mean unleashing him on the full-moon if they piss us off," Damon sniffed, nodding.

"There are more ways of killing a cat than skinning it," Giulia said, and Damon rolled his eyes. She had mixed metaphors, but she knew it worked. "Look, just leave Mason to me, okay – leave him _alone_. And I'll see if I can fix the mess you made."

"I didn't make any messes! See this, this is _Armani Privé_. And it's now riddled with bullet-holes because your little pet wolf-crush decided to try and get me killed using my own secret vampire-hating council against me!" Damon blurted indignantly. "Guy needs to be put down!"

" _No_. Just neutered," Giulia disagreed. "You and Stefan deal with the deputies, Caroline can take care of her mom, and I'll handle Mason Lockwood. _After_ I find out what Jeremy learned from Tyler."

"That's gonna be a _short_ conversation," Damon smirked, slinging himself into the driver's seat of his Camaro. Liz bristled beside him, eyes widening.

"Stop being such an ass; you haven't fed as well in weeks, you should be in a better mood," Giulia said, shaking her head. "I'll meet you at the Boarding House later."

"What do you mean, _later_?"

"The picnic is still going strong," Giulia said. It was reaching late-afternoon and most people had filtered off, believing they had done their part, eaten their free burger, and seen some friends, enjoying the heat in a family-friendly social event funded by the Historical Society. There were always big turnouts for town events where free food was on offer. And with the heat-wave it had turned out to be an exceptional day.

She sighed, walking back to the jungle-gym, ready to pick up a hammer and hit things. _Exceptional_ was one way of putting it.

Caroline had disappeared an hour before she left, after a call "from her mom" that she thought she had food-poisoning, but they'd both stayed at their posts, doing everything they could to do their part. The new park did look beautiful, with the gentle waterfall glittering in the sun, the rowboats and gleaming lifeguard's station, the three brightly-painted mini beach-huts tucked behind the trees that could be hired out, the _visitors' centre_ Giulia had built and painted, primroses glowing in the sun, the huge wooden jungle-gym and swing set with natural springy bark chips. She sighed, glancing out at the water. It was a shame such a beautiful day had been interrupted by supernatural shit.

She half-wished Stefan and Elena's fake drama had been the worst of it.

* * *

 **A.N.** : Hi everyone! So, I'm slipping some hints and clues into the story that won't really be important until a few sequels in! But they should hopefully add a little bit of flavour to the chapters.


	13. Be Our Guest

**A.N.** : Hello, m'lovelies! Another chapter for you.

* * *

 **Dangerous Beauty**

 _13_

 _Be Our Guest_

* * *

She stumbled into the main room of the Boarding House, yawning. The others had already gathered – Stefan, freshly showered and changed, Hero Hair clean but not styled; Elena, rolling her eyes impatiently at Jeremy, who was grinning lazily as he sketched, feet kicked up on the coffee-table where several blood-bags had been tossed casually. Liz, sat on the daybed, looking out of her depth. A look Giulia had never seen on her before. Despite the call to go home, hot and sticky and just wanting to douse herself under a cold shower and traipse about her house in a flimsy t-shirt and her underwear, revelling in the warmth, she had coaxed her _Beetle_ to the Boarding House, fearing her baby was about to perish.

"So, _Liz_ is gonna stay here for a few days as our _guest_ , we're gonna ensure the vervain's out of her system so we can compel you and we can all live happily in your ignorance of our dirty little secret," Damon said, smiling viciously. He _hadn't_ changed, and his shirt and jeans still showed evidence of the failed assassination-attempt. "Stef's moved a cot down there; we'll keep you in books and bourbon. You might wanna to sweet-talk your daughter into food-shopping if you, you know, want to _eat_ ; we have _citrus_."

"For Lemon Drops," Giulia said, smiling as he handed her the aforementioned cocktail. Citrus and tart and delightful after a hot day working up a good sweat. He offered one to Liz, who looked like she'd never seen a glass before. He shrugged, taking a good swig of the yellowy cocktail himself. She glanced at Liz, who was blinking at her drinking her cocktail so casually. "Caroline's on her way, she's picked up some things for you."

Liz let out a sigh, shaking her head, "Let's just get this over with." Damon arched an eyebrow, but shrugged. Lemon Drop in hand, he showed Liz down to the basement.

"Is she gonna be okay?" Elena asked in an undertone, glancing at Stefan.

"She'll be fine," Giulia said quietly, answering for him. "Damon wouldn't hurt her."

"Oh, you think so?" Elena asked, giving her a nasty look.

"Yes." She glanced at Jeremy. "So what'd you find out?" Jeremy glanced up from his sketchbook.

"Tyler Lockwood's not a werewolf," he announced, and Giulia fought the urge to roll her eyes. _Duh_! "But he told me his uncle, Mason, _is_. According to Tyler, who got it from Mason, it runs in their family, through the Lockwood line. It's latent until they trigger the curse. And the only way to do that is to kill someone. Tyler said, any death at your hands – murder, or fighting as a soldier according to Mason, or like a car-accident, even – and the curse is triggered. Every full-moon Mason turns into a wolf."

"So…Mason's killed someone?" Elena frowned, looking aghast. Giulia glanced at her, wondering if Elena ever felt culpable for her parents' deaths because she had pitched a fit and demanded they pick her up from the bonfire after she had a fight with Matt.

"Tyler says one of Mason's friends got drunk one night and attacked him, thinking Mason was sleeping with his girlfriend," Jeremy sighed, still sketching away. She peered closer, smiling subtly when she realised he was stoned. He hadn't gotten high in a while but she imagined he and Tyler had a lot in common, and what better way to bury the hatchet between them than to share a bowl? And what Jeremy had said niggled at her. _Interesting_ , she thought. Someone, a _friend_ , had attacked Mason, provoking a fight that ended in his death? "The guy died, apparently. That's how Mason triggered his curse."

"Why did Tyler tell you all this?" Giulia asked. "He's usually close-lipped."

"Sarah and Aimee were looking through my sketchbook, they found my drawings of wolves, Tyler attacked me, so I told him I knew. Made up some lie about Jonathan Gilbert's journals, how he wrote about a curse in Tyler's family, and he told me," Jeremy shrugged, fingertips smeared with charcoal as he sketched, distracted. "He said his uncle's in town trying to find something."

"Find what?" Stefan and Giulia asked simultaneously. Owl-eyes peered up at them, and Jeremy's attention drifted off. Giulia snapped her fingers in front of his face.

"Looks like you and Tyler really bonded," she smirked, amused. "What is Mason looking for?"

"Tyler said it's a moonstone. Big shiny rock, kinda _milky_ , about yay big," Jeremy said, holding up his hands, finger and thumb four inches apart. "It was smooth and cold. Tyler said his uncle's been skulking around the house looking for it; but Tyler knew where his dad had hidden it, so he took it." Giulia scoffed, amused. That was classic Tyler. "According to Google, moonstones are used in all kinds of occult traditions."

"Like the amber crystal," Elena said softly, eyes widening with realisation. Giulia raised an eyebrow, surprised a girl who could barely scrape a C- in repeat Geometry could make the connection. "So…this thing Mason wants–"

"Ten-to-one Katherine wants it," Giulia sniffed, and Stefan nodded solemnly.

"Definitely," he sighed. "Guess that's why she sought him out in Florida." Giulia glanced at him, biting her tongue.

"Well. Can't have _that_ ," Giulia said lightly.

"You said Tyler has this moonstone thing?" Stefan said, frowning seriously.

"Yeah, but, I don't know… The girls were messing around with it, and Tyler knocked Sarah and she kind of…fell down the stairs – she wasn't hurt, but… Guess Mason was right; he said Tyler wouldn't be able to think about anything else if he told Tyler how the curse is triggered," Jeremy yawned. "He was still pretty freaked out after the girls had left."

"Hence why you got _stoned_ ," Elena said coolly, glaring at him.

"And didn't even invite me," Giulia sighed, shaking her head.

"Can you _not_ encourage him?" Elena snapped. Giulia held up her hands defensively.

"Like he needs encouragement," she chuckled, and Jeremy gave her a lazy grin.

If – well, there was no _if_ : Katherine had found a lone Lockwood and seduced him, only to manipulate his friends into triggering his curse, turning him into a werewolf. She bet Katherine had then revealed her secret to him, standing by him, supporting him, earning his trust. And she'd have told Mason about a little curse they could break to stop him turning into a wolf every month. But she needed his help to do it. She needed the moonstone she had entrusted to his family a century and a half ago. She wondered what lies and stories Katherine had told Mason about his ancestor George, how they were connected. Well, Giulia's way forward was clear. She caught Stefan's eye, and they shared a sombre look.

"We'll deal with Mason," he said, glancing from the floor to Elena to Giulia, clearing his throat. "Meanwhile…you and Jeremy should go."

"No, Stefan, we can't just _go_ –"

"That's exactly what you're gonna do. Jenna and Ric are expecting you. Katherine's still lurking out there, and there's no limit to what she's capable of," Stefan said fairly. "What happened today doesn't change anything." He sighed, pushing his hair back in frustration, eyeing the blood-bags on the coffee-table. "She wants to separate us. Push her way between _all_ of us. That's what she does, she wreaks havoc and she doesn't _care_ who she hurts. But she wants to _punish_ us. Me. And you."

Looking almost startled, bewildered, Elena gathered her things. Jeremy caught Giulia's eye and they both grimaced. She watched Stefan as he fiddled with the blood-bag, exhaling deeply.

"What are you doing?" Elena asked, eyeing him, the blood-bag. Giulia perched on the arm of the daybed, sipping her Lemon Drop, phone in her hand waiting for any word from Caroline.

"Katherine took a little vervain every day to immunise herself," he said thoughtfully. "I could do the same with blood. I could learn to control myself on it." Giulia raised her eyebrows, surprised. Damon had been telling Stefan for years – so had Lexi – that in order to live a full life, accepting what he was as a part of _who_ he was, Stefan had to learn how to feed without giving in to the rapture of glutting himself on human-blood. Instead of locking the Ripper away, Stefan had to learn how to control him. Like Jekyll and Hyde. The Hulk. He had to find a way to be _both_ , with the strengths of both, the vulnerabilities, the traits that too often might have led to Stefan's death being so careless, leaving trails of bodies, controlled.

"But you can't, Stefan," Elena said gently, cajolingly, as if reminding him he didn't have to feel guilty about forgetting to do his Pre-Calculus homework. "You don't have to."

"I almost _died_ today, Elena," Stefan said, glancing up at her and looking more sombre than he had all day, even surrounded by death in the Lockwood cellar. "Because I was too _weak_."

"But the last time that you drink human blood…" She left the thought trailing on the air, and they all – perhaps not Jeremy, Giulia got the feeling Elena hadn't confided _everything_ about the dangers of her relationship with Stefan to her little brother – knew what she was talking about. She may choose to ignore, perhaps she hadn't actually made the connection, that Stefan had _Ripped_ a girl in the next town. Grove Hill was still searching for their serial-killer.

"I told you I'll find a way to stop Katherine, didn't I?" Stefan asked belligerently. "Well this is it; this is the only way, because she's _stronger_ than me. And unless I change that, I can't protect you." Giulia kept quiet; she was of the opinion he needed to learn how to control his cravings for human-blood. While Damon was around to keep him in check, he might have a better shot of doing it. Especially with a perky life-coach like Caroline Forbes to help; she couldn't resist.

Elena lowered her voice, glancing at Jeremy and Giulia, still sipping her Lemon Drop. She tapped her fingers to her lips, glancing pointedly at the door to the basement staircase. "Can we talk about this later?"

"He can hear us wherever we are because he _drinks_ this," Stefan blurted angrily. The reactions of a vampire pushed into an impossible situation, frustrated and futile, were not all that different from a human's. Belligerence, outright anger, bargaining, helplessness, trying anything, no matter how desperate. "This is the only thing that can help me!"

"Are you serious?" Elena gasped softly. "Are you… _pretending_ to fight? Because I can't tell if…" Giulia rolled her eyes, so did Jeremy; but it was sufficiently awkward enough neither of them said a word, pretending to be part of the furniture while their love-struck 'siblings' fought.

"No, this is real," Stefan said, his anger simmering away to a steely resolve. "No more pretend." Elena stalked away, looking upset and self-righteous.

"I really _don't_ miss having a boyfriend," Giulia mused, and Jeremy snickered, climbing off the sofa. "Enjoy your dinner."

"Yeah, I will," Jeremy smiled lazily. "Guessing Elena will be in a _mood_."

"Force her to _eat something_ , her mood will alter dramatically," Giulia said, concerned her friend was actually disappearing while she watched her pick up her purse from under the table in the foyer. She knew Jenna wasn't exactly Martha Stewart about keeping the refrigerator and pantry stocked the way Miranda Gilbert had, but she always made sure there was something to eat for breakfast, and eating out was so cheap there were no excuses for dinner. She wondered if not-eating was Elena's way of coping with the stress of everything going on.

Giulia finished her Lemon Drop as the siblings departed, leaving her alone with Stefan. She fiddled awkwardly with her empty glass, peering across the room at the bar-station Damon had set up on the heavy table the other side of the sofa; antique ice-bucket, cocktail-shakers, crystal decanters, jars of olives and maraschino cherries, liqueurs, a dish of limes. She was considering making herself another when Stefan glanced up, looking like he wanted to ask her something.

"Oh, don't look at me, I'm not getting involved," she said, raising a hand defensively.

"But you agree with me," he said, his tone defeated. Giulia let out a long sigh.

"I think…that regardless of whether it's Bambi or a Soccer-Mom you're drinking, Katherine will _still_ be stronger – she's got centuries on you," Giulia said fairly. "I agree that you should learn how to _control_ the Ripper. But I don't know that now's the appropriate time, when your back is up against the wall…"

"You don't think it's the right time…" Stefan sighed, dumping the blood-bag on the coffee-table. Giulia eyed it thoughtfully.

"I think if you want to do it, we're all here. We'll support you," she said, perfectly honest. She may not like Stefan half the time, he had always been far from her favourite, there was a disconnect between them and always had been due to his awkwardness around her being _human_ … But he was…family. And sometimes, when they were having a good moment, sometimes it felt a little like having a brother – one she rolled her eyes at, disdained his choice of girlfriend, didn't feel any urge to spend much quality-time with, but someone she thought would have her back. As she did his. They were family – several generations removed, but they were bound by blood, and the Salvatores stuck by their family. "But if you want to do it, you have to think hard about _how_ you're going to do it, how you're going to keep yourself from flinging yourself over the edge."

"That, uh, still doesn't help me with Katherine," he said, looking tired. Giulia pursed her lips thoughtfully.

"Being fully aware of how cheesy this will sound, Stefan, our strength is in each other," she said softly. "Our friendships, our bonds – Elena and her family, me and Caroline, you and Damon. You two may squabble like little bitches but if anyone threatened either of you, the Hero Hair would gleam in the sunshine, the Wonder Twin superpower rings would activate… And I know you both will work together to defeat anyone who dared try to threaten the people you value in your lives. If that means Elena or Tyler or Caroline or Liz or me, I know you two won't _stop_ until you know we're safe. Just like we'll all fight for you, too. _That_ is our strength. Katherine has _never_ had that. She won't ever."

"It feels good to hear you say that," Stefan said softly, with a tense smile. Giulia shrugged.

"I know what people think of me," she said, glancing at him. "They're wrong." His smile was gentle and sad. She sighed heavily. "But if you think doping up on the hard stuff will give you an edge, then I'll help." She reached for the blood-bag, frowning thoughtfully. "Get me a shot-glass. You like cherries, don't you?"

"Yeah," Stefan said slowly, frowning bemusedly, retrieving a clean shot-glass from the bar. She poured a thimbleful of blood into the glass, plucking a cherry by the stalk out of her tub of fruit.

"Okay," she said thoughtfully, as Stefan sighed, peering into the shot-glass with a wince. She handed him the cherry. "You're going to knock that back, and then straight away eat the cherry. Focus on the flavour of the _cherry_ , rather than the blood. How much you enjoy the fruit. You'll still know the blood's there but it's not the focus. And you're going to start telling me the names on your list."

"My–?"

"Your Ripper list," Giulia said. "As the Ripper you used to use those names to relive the pleasure you took from your kills; now you're going to use the guilt you felt about killing them when you got sober. Remember their names to keep in control. Make sure you don't add any _more_ to the list."

Stefan sighed, the cogs whirring as he frowned from the shot-glass to the cherry. He glanced up at her. "You really think this could work?"

"It's worth a try," Giulia said, shrugging. "You can't ever say you _didn't_ try. I think, maybe if you do this once a day, maybe a thimbleful every night for a month, and then steadily increase the volume, a little at a time over weeks and months, but keep filling the coffers with animal-blood."

"Weeks and months, huh?"

"Honey, all you have is time," Giulia said, pulling a face. "Not that I want to pressure a recovering addict to indulge, but…if you're going to do it..."

"No time like the present, right?" Stefan sighed, taking a deep breath, and he downed the blood. As the veins beneath his eyes flickered black, fangs briefly sharpening, he shoved the cherry in his mouth, closing his eyes as he fought to focus on the sweet, meaty taste of the ripe, sun-warmed cherry.

"Okay, now the names," she coaxed gently. Stefan plucked the cherry-stone from his mouth, eyes still closed, getting control of himself.

"Giuseppe Salvatore," he said quietly, exhaling shakily, the veins flickering again. He ground his jaw. "Mamie. Josephine. Peach. Roland. Hannah. Thomas and Honoria Fell… Jonathan Gilbert… Theodore and Elizabeth Lockwood… George Lockwood…" He exhaled slowly, opening his clear hazel eyes.

"Do you want to keep listing the names?"

"I'll save the next dozen for tomorrow," he said in a deadened tone, setting the shot-glass down upside-down. She fastened the blood-bag up; by the feel of it, it needed to go back into the deep chest-freezer in the basement. He pushed his fists into his jeans pockets, and he gave her an awkward smile. "Thanks."

"You're welcome," Giulia nodded, glad when someone rang the antique bell. She didn't think _anyone_ used the bell. Before she had moved out people just tended to invite themselves in to the Boarding House. She had to turn the porch light on, revealing Caroline on the doorstep.

"You've missed all the excitement," Giulia said, gesturing her over the threshold.

"Sorry I took so long," Caroline sighed, lugging a small suitcase inside. Giulia shrugged, taking the overnight-bag slung over her shoulder. "I didn't know how long Mom would be here to know what to pack." She glanced at Giulia as she closed the front-door, biting her tongue. Giulia arched an eyebrow, and smiled as Caroline let out a pent-up breath, "Does she _really_ have to stay here in Damon's creepy vampire-cell, I mean, I can stay home with my mom and make sure she doesn't tell anyone, I'll unplug the phones, lock away her cell and we'll just watch _Gilmore Girls_ for days!"

"I think Liz would prefer the cell," Giulia said, lips twitching, and Caroline sighed, shoulders drooping.

"I mean, I don't want my _mom_ being a _prisoner_ ," Caroline said, gazing imploringly at her.

"Look, nobody _wants_ to keep your mom locked up," Stefan said, taking the suitcase from Caroline. "But it's safest for everyone, _including_ Liz, for her to just stay out of sight until we can fix this mess. Let's not forget, Mason pointed her at us, there's no way to tell if he won't take it out on her that she failed to kill us."

"I don't think Mason will try again," Giulia said. "He's doesn't seem the vengeful type."

"He just almost got us killed about six hours ago!" Stefan said, raising his eyebrows. Giulia kept an eye on him, wondering how much human blood triggered the dramatic Ripper-shift in his personality. She frowned, thinking she needed to update Lexi on their new undertaking if the worst came to the worst.

"In his defence, Damon did threaten him," Caroline said fairly, and Giulia nodded.

"And what if it was _Katherine's_ idea," Stefan said, glancing at her. "He may not be a bad guy but he'd still do anything for her."

"Stefan, Katherine wants to _climb_ you – not kill you," Giulia tutted.

"And how d'you know he'd do anything for Katherine?" Caroline asked curiously.

Stefan sighed, shaking his head. "Because I've been where Mason is. A hundred and fifty years ago, I _was_ Mason."

"Right," Caroline sighed, wincing guiltily. "The tomb."

"Mm," Stefan pulled a face.

"Just leave Mason to me. We're meeting for a run Tuesday-morning, I'll try to talk to him," Giulia said. Stefan blinked at her.

"You're going to–"

"Go for a run with him, yes," Giulia nodded. "Caroline, what happens when you exercise?"

"You get endorphins!" Caroline beamed. "Endorphins make you _happy_."

"'Happy people just don't kill their husbands'," Giulia quoted, and Caroline giggled; _Legally_ _Blonde_ had been a favourite of Caroline's when they were twelve. Stefan looked like he was preventing himself from strangling them. "We'll go for a hard workout, get him on a natural high–"

"And then what?" Stefan asked, eyeing her dubiously.

"And then I'll talk to him," Giulia said simply. "It's amazing the power _words_ have."

"Do you think you should be alone with him?" Stefan asked, frowning concernedly. "What if Katherine attacks you?"

"Before she's even introduced herself? Rude," Giulia sniffed. "Although, she'll _probably_ want to rip out my vocal-cords after I talk to Mason." With a self-satisfied smirk, she led the way to the basement stairs. She could hear Damon chatting happily down in the cellar. She had moved the vervain plants out of the basement when she moved out of the Boarding House; there was a small greenhouse built onto the side of the freestanding carriage-house garage at her new home, and she enjoyed pottering about in there.

"…It's not exactly the Ritz, but it's secure," Damon said. "I brought a good bed camp and once the vervain is worked out of your system, I will compel you, you will forget everything and you will be a free woman."

"Keep Caroline away from me, please?" Liz's voice said, and Giulia glanced up at Caroline, who had stiffened. "I don't want to see her."

"She's your daughter, Liz," Damon said, his tone fair and cajoling. By the way she was standing, Giulia thought Damon might have seen Caroline, at least a flicker of her blonde hair in the awful lighting down here.

"Not anymore," Liz said, her voice throaty. "My daughter's gone."

Damon's voice was almost gentle, when he said, "You have no idea how wrong you are about that." Caroline turned, her expression closed off as she made her way back upstairs silently. Giulia glanced at Stefan, who nodded and took the overnight bag from her. She followed Caroline upstairs, finding her deflated on the sofa.

"She hates me!"

"Don't be ridiculous," Giulia said gently, wrapping her arm around Caroline's shaking shoulders. "She _loves_ you; she'd take bullets for you. So would I. Not in the head. Maybe in the leg or something." Caroline sniffled and gave a small, watery laugh. "She just found out six hours ago that she…she _failed_. She failed to protect you. And now because the Council's working off out-of-date information, she thinks you've _changed_. She thinks you're the spawn of Satan… And people think _I'm_ the bad influence!"

"Stop trying to make me laugh," Caroline sniffed, with a tremulous smile. "You're not going to make me feel better."

"You always say that," Giulia smiled. "And I always do."

"Yeah," Caroline sighed, shaking her head. She wiped her eyes, tossing her curls back. "I should probably write a grocery list, you guys have, like, _nothing_ to eat in this house. And have we synchronised our diaries? You have so much going on, it's ridiculous. Are you staying here tonight, I don't really want to leave my mom here on her own. Are you _really_ going to just take Mason for a run and convince him to stand down?"

"Like the doggy terminology," Giulia smirked. She sighed. Given that Caroline was on the cusp of a mini-meltdown – lists were the first clue, Filofax updating being the second, her frighteningly chipper mood the most obvious – she couldn't very well leave her to smother her mother with concern while Liz waited out the customary time it took to get vervain out of the blood-system. Liz might just end up staking her to slow Caroline down; when Caroline had a meltdown no cobweb, Calculus problem or event vendor was safe. "I just need to fire off a few texts. Do you want to get a head-start on the basement?"

"Mm. It's too nice to stay indoors," Caroline mused. "Don't you have those old converted barns? I'm sure your dad hoarded all his favourite junk in there, like his guns."

"Dad only kept one in the house, and it's still under his mattress," Giulia said, shrugging. Caroline frowned subtly at her.

"Have you gone through your dad's things?" she asked quietly. "I mean, your dad had quite a classic style, I'm sure the local charity-stores would really appreciate the donation."

"Caroline," Giulia warned; she hadn't been in her father's room since his death. But she smiled, glancing at her best-friend. "There is something I want to show you. I found it the other day when I was looking for some tools."

"Ooh, what?" Caroline grinned.

" _Damon! We're going to the barn_!" Giulia called, knowing he'd hear her. She showed Caroline out of the house, through the airy breakfast-room painted with Chinoiserie and birds into the tempered-glass conservatory filled with lush greenery fed by timed sprinklers, out onto the sweeping patio and down into the grounds. The Gilberts and the Forbes families had moved on from their ancestral mansions, antebellum plantation-houses giving way to four-bedroom new builds with a wraparound porch and a good-sized yard for paddling-pools and cookouts. The Lockwoods had their neatly manicured mansion, elegant and calculated, a physical manifestation of everything they wanted people to believe their family was. The Salvatore property was sprawling, wild and natural, left to its own devices but for a few trees threatening either the house or the outbuildings. These outbuildings, now-defunct coach-houses tucked out of sight, some old barns from back when the great estate had still been self-sufficient with enormous kitchen-gardens and livestock, were dotted around the woods, the meadows, sheds falling down by the creek – there were no slave-quarters; Salvatores hadn't owned slaves since the Civil War, but someone, maybe Damon, most likely Damon, had put up tiny two-room houses, really no more than shacks now, for the people who had historically worked on their land. The shacks were small and quaint, with potential, most of them overgrown with honeysuckle or clematis, the porches rotted away.

It was to the old stables Giulia led Caroline. Derelict, they were still beautiful, built out of redbrick like the house, the roof tiled, wild jasmine and Virginia creeper and honeysuckle growing all over them; the stable archways were double-width, most of the gates long-disintegrated, and she knew her dad had been making plans to replace the ancient tarps with doors over each of them. He'd embedded huge spikes into the ground, the cords of the tarpaulins knotted around to keep them down over the winter, and she unknotted the one she wanted, Caroline helping her fold it back out of the way, so the dying sun shone hotly through into the murky, dusty stable.

"Isn't this your dad's place?" Caroline asked. A long time ago, the stables had been vacated of horses to inter dead cars. Her uncle Joshua's _Impala_ , made pathetic by neglect, and, it had made her almost cry when she had peeled the dust-sheets away, a pristine _Aston Martin_ DB5, which had belonged, like Giulia's _Beetle_ , to her grandmother Doll. The Salvatore boys were car-lovers. Damon's _Camaro_ , Stefan's _Porsche_. Even her dad had loved his vintage Oldsmobile – _his_ dad's favourite car. Uncle Joshua had lived in his _Impala_. Giulia loved her _Beetle_ , and was devoted to setting some time aside to give her the works after neglecting her over the winter. The stables, turned into a sort of garage, had become the place Giulia knew she could always find her dad. In his teen years, it had been the place he and his brother Joshua used to hang out – there were still faded, tattered posters on the walls, a broken-in sofa, the detritus of teenage-boys from the Eighties – and a long workbench running the length of the furthest stall was where her dad had kept all his carpentry tools. There was a half-finished fishing-boat in one of the stables; and she pulled a dust-sheet off a small, domed structure in another. The frame was rusted, and it needed a _lot_ of work.

"Aw, it's cute!" Caroline blurted, smiling, her eyes twinkling. "What is it?"

"So _this_ is a vintage teardrop caravan," Giulia smiled. It really was tiny; it would fit into Caroline's dad's enormous luxury RV multiple times over, and Giulia could stretch out in it only if she lay down diagonally. Her dad used to let her play in it when she was little, while he tinkered about with his tools, fixing the chain back on her bicycle. "I think my uncle bought it in England. He and my dad hitched it to a car they bought in France after high-school and they drove around Europe with it."

She had listened to his stories of his adventures with his brother Joshua, inspired. Giulia used to talk about her and Caroline going on an insanely fun post-graduation backpacking trip across the US. Camping out under the stars, whores' baths in truck-stop restroom sinks, amazing street-food, riding every rollercoaster they came across, visiting museums, partying at night, hiking insanely beautiful, barren trails, riding horses through Wyoming countryside, take a helicopter ride through the Grand Canyon, driving down the California coast, seeing glaciers and flower-strewn prairies and extraordinary natural monuments. During and after college she wanted to do Europe and Asia, South America.

"Wow," Caroline said, grimacing guiltily as she tried the tiny door, and it came off in her hand. "I swear, I didn't use vamp-strength! I can smell the rust."

"I believe you," Giulia chuckled. "I don't think my dad touched it in over twenty years, just like the _Impala_. I think he was still hoping Joshua would come home and fix it all up himself."

"That's kinda sad," Caroline said softly. "You never talk about your uncle."

"I never met him," Giulia shrugged. "I think he went missing before Dad even met my mother. But, I remembered this the other day, and, I don't know, I thought about making a project of it. You know, renovating it… I figured a bookshelf in there with a radio and two little cupboards for clean panties, and _here_ …" She carefully lifted up the back hatch of the teardrop, which rose creakily to reveal a tiny galley with small cupboards and a twin-burner gas stove. " _Minibar_."

"So your dad and his brother actually _both_ fit in here to sleep?" Caroline chuckled, peering inside, rolling her eyes at Giulia's ideas.

"In bad weather, I'm sure they made do," Giulia smiled, peering into the tiny trailer as well.

"So what inspired this project?" Caroline asked, with a gleam in her eye. Caroline couldn't _resist_ projects, no matter how un-girly. Sanding and screwdrivers weren't exactly her thing, but Giulia had figured she wouldn't be afraid of getting splinters anymore.

"Well…with your mom coming off vervain, maybe you could compel her to give you permission to _trail_ our way across the US this summer," Giulia grinned, and Caroline laughed. "I think it'd be cool."

" _So_ cool!" Caroline beamed. "Only, you know my dad would want to _inspect_ every inch of it before he'd ever let us leave town, especially if we were supposed to be living out of it."

"Huh."

"What?"

"Usually, I'd get a flat-out ' _I don't think so'_ from you when I suggested backpacking our way across the country by ourselves," she said, smiling softly, raising a hand to shield her eyes from the dying sun.

"Yeah, well…things change," Caroline smiled.

"I know," Giulia smiled warmly. With the hot weather, summer had suddenly seemed not so very far away; Caroline had been dropping hints. She had been talking about learning how to rock-climb. _Spelunking_. She wanted to go white-water rafting. Hike hidden mountain-trails. Take cooking classes. Go to cult music-festivals. Camp out under the stars. With immediate access to a curling-iron, of course.

Caroline had always listened to her talking about their backpacking trip, struggling to find any enthusiasm, secretly anxious at the idea of going it alone. Giulia had always known it, though. But that girl was gone. A new strength had been tempered, polished in Caroline. It shone within her. She wanted to be that bold, adventurous girl with a spine of steel who said the right thing, stood by her friends, inspired admiration in everyone who met her.

"I was hoping you'd mention the cross-country trip," Caroline smiled gently. "I've – been thinking about it. About how much fun it would be."

"Why didn't you say anything?" Giulia asked, laughing.

"Because – because it was _your_ thing," Caroline said. "You know, you always seemed so excited by it, you made it sound like an adventure. And I was really nervous about even thinking about going by ourselves. But it's something you want to do, and I… _I_ don't think we should wait 'til we graduate. I mean, I've been looking into festivals and camp-sites and amazing things to do all over the country and the National Parks, but – I don't want to _take it over_ , you know? It's your thing, you always wanted to do it, I just…want to do it with you."

"You really mean it?" Giulia asked seriously. Caroline paused, then nodded, smiling.

"Yeah. I really mean it," she said softly. "I mean, you _always_ go along with everything I want to do, even though I know you'd sometimes rather just slit your own throat–" Giulia chuckled, and Caroline smiled apologetically, "–but, you know…I want…to remember doing this."

"Hey, I didn't say anything about sobriety," Giulia said, holding her hands up. Caroline laughed.

"You know what I mean," she smiled. "I just…I don't want to look back and wish I'd done these things. I…I don't have anything to be afraid of. And think of the scrapbooking possibilities."

"Oh Christ," Giulia swore, shaking her head as Caroline giggled. "You know…I wanted to do this trip _with you_. So…of course you can look up stuff we should do."

"Really?"

"Yeah," Giulia smiled. "You think up doing things I never would."

"So do you," Caroline said brightly, and Giulia smiled. "Okay. Okay! So, it's like a deal? We just have to get my mom's permission to go? I'm not really very good at any of this DIY stuff, so, we may need to recruit other people to help if we want this finished by June. I love that you're distracting me from my mom being locked in a dungeon with _DIY_."

"I know you too well," Giulia smiled. Give Caroline a list of things to accomplish and she was golden.

"Okay, well, I need to get my camera and take some pictures and I'll grab some interior-decorating magazines at the grocery-store – you're coming with me, right? – and I'm sure there are sites online we can resource to design the refurb," Caroline said, and Giulia blinked as Caroline vamp-speeded out of sight, returning two minutes later (by Giulia's watch) with her little purple camera, snapping pictures of the dilapidated trailer.

The shadow of Liz being in the dungeon niggled at them, but it didn't override everything; Caroline was happy, distracted for the moment, already babbling about retro trailer outfitters, paint-trims, upholstery and the benefit of a refrigerator versus the annoyance of a generator. They had to really think about what they would _need_ to take with them, designing creative storage for the tiny trailer, sourcing a table and chairs to eat at, emergency supplies, "and what if it _does_ rain?"

"We'll get an awning," Giulia promised her casually.

"That's a good idea," Caroline nodded, sat at the huge table on the patio with her Filofax open on her knees, jotting notes down in candlelight as Giulia lit more tea-lights and the fat candles inside glass lanterns. It was too warm to sit indoors; there was the faint sound of cicadas and night-song from birds, the gentle rush of the breeze through the new leaves. "How are we gonna pack it? You'll have to clean out all the crap from your car – can it even make it to the State lines, let alone around the US?"

"I'll make sure it does," Giulia smiled. "Taking the Beetle would limit the amount of crap we take with us."

"Right. Necessities – and playing-cards. Maybe _Bananagrams_ ," Caroline mused. "Cuticle cream and sunscreen, obviously."

"I love your idea of essentials," Giulia chuckled.

"Hey, I'm a vampire, I won't need painkillers or blister-packs or tampons!" Caroline grinned. "And you're so tough you wouldn't go to Meredith unless your spine was hanging out."

"I'm not _that_ tough," Giulia laughed.

"You know what I mean," Caroline sighed. "Are we still spring-cleaning the house? Seems more like an ongoing task than a _project_ and if we want the trailer done by June…"

"I might just work on the house whenever I have the time," Giulia said, plucking her sticky t-shirt away from her stomach. "Or get the guys to do some of it, half the stuff they probably tracked back into the house over the years anyway."

"What're you guys talking about?" Damon asked, strolling outside, a fresh bourbon in hand.

"We're planning a trip," Caroline beamed.

It was strange, what happened. Damon plopped down at the table beside Caroline, and even Stefan appeared with one of his leather-bound journals. Someone produced an old stereo and some CDs, Damon made them drinks, and they snacked on the leftovers Giulia had pilfered from the picnic, and they all…chatted. Hung out, as if…as if they were… _friends_.

It was alarming and _lovely_. Just sitting in the candlelight, drinking and snacking and writing lists of the places the boys would recommend were worth a visit. Things to see, places to eat, neighbourhoods to avoid, people to call on, bars amazing for live-music, wonderful random places. The boys…relaxed – they told stories, about their individual adventures, about the rare occasions they had met – and been on good terms – making them laugh and keeping Caroline enthralled, eyes glittering in the candlelight as she diligently made notes, her imagination whirring with the possibilities.

* * *

 **A.N.** : Hi guys. So, bit of a tangent. I was on Pinterest and got inspired, I thought, Caroline and Giulia on a road-trip with a tiny trailer. That sounds so awesome. I also have plans for Liz and Mason – not like _that_ , guys! Things will start to diverge again…


	14. Liz

**A.N.** : Hi! So, there were some questions asked: nobody knows about Giulijah; Uncle Joshua will be hinted at until a future sequel but will play an important part of the story; oh, and Gyda is indeed Elijah's daughter. His only surviving child.

* * *

 **Dangerous Beauty**

 _14_

 _Liz_

* * *

The Sheriff being held in the dungeon with "food-poisoning" definitely put an edge on the second half of their spring break. It was unavoidable, much as Giulia tried to put it out of her mind. Because…she was ashamed.

Liz knew, and Giulia was embarrassed. There were few people in the world – still living – whose opinions she actually cared about, and whose respect she sought. Caroline's mother was at the very _top_ of that list.

And because of what Liz had learned in the cellar, everything had changed. Everything Liz had thought she knew about Giulia's family – about Giulia herself. Every memory Liz had of them now had to be drenched in doubt. She had to be wondering just how deeply the betrayal went – and how Caroline's proximity to her family had caused Caroline's…death.

Giulia couldn't bear the idea that Liz might _blame_ her for Caroline being turned. She had every right to – from the outside it looked as if Stefan and Damon were the only vampires in town and Giulia, she was their protector. When the shock wore off, and Liz started looking for someone to blame for Caroline's transformation…would she blame Giulia? Think that _everything_ about their relationship was based on a lie? For how long had Giulia been lying to her? Besides Caroline and Damon, Liz was probably the person Giulia loved more than anyone – certainly she often respected Liz more than she did Damon.

And would Liz's opinion of Giulia's dad, a man Liz had loved and respected and been friends with all her life, alter posthumously because of what Liz had just learned. That Zach had been bound by family-loyalty to protect Damon and Stefan. Two vampires who, together, had killed their fair share of Founders, some of whom were Liz's ancestors. And Zach had done nothing when Damon came to town, leaving a trail of bodies – bodies Liz had to clean up. She had the open investigations, the cold-cases piling up on her desk because of him.

And Caroline…

Had the man she thought was her friend really been the one to turn her daughter into something she believed utterly monstrous? Had Giulia brought him into their lives?

As Caroline dealt with her mother knowing her secret by planning, researching, cooking, rummaging through the basement, within eyeshot of the cellar-door but not yet brave enough to approach her mother, and generally driving everyone crazy, Giulia tried to stifle the feeling bubbling up in her stomach…the feeling of being _afraid_. Ashamed and sorrowful.

Even if Liz was going to be compelled as soon as the vervain left her system, Giulia didn't dare go down into the basement, even to just check she was okay.

She was too _afraid_ that Liz would look at her as if she wasn't the person Liz had always thought she was. Because Liz's opinion of her was important to her, it always had been. Liz was the closest Giulia had ever come to a mother. And it mattered to her what Liz thought of her. She was _afraid_ that she had…disappointed Liz.

"You can only find out one way or another by talking to her," Elijah said softly, lifting a few pieces of paper to see what Giulia was working on.

"But I don't want to find out," Giulia said, agitated and more upset than she had shown anyone but Elijah. She was fidgety and tired, sleepless again and probably annoying Elijah more than he would ever tell her. He had the patience of a saint. Or a thousand-year-old vampire to whom time meant nothing. "If I go in there and talk to her and she…she _blames_ me – they're going to take away her memories but _I'll_ still know. _I'm_ still ashamed. It'll change things."

"You respect this woman," Elijah said softly, and Giulia nodded glumly. She did. Otherwise she wouldn't feel so conflicted, so ashamed about everything. She could do a lot of things without turning a hair – but to see Liz Forbes look at her as if she had lost all respect for her… Elijah sighed, picking up a pencil and smoothing a fresh page of the sketchbook she had thought to give him so he could keep sketching his jewellery designs. A polished wooden case featuring 240 high-quality coloured pencils rested, gleaming, on the coffee-table amid Giulia's books, magazines, paint and fabric swatches, notepads and the remote for the sound-system, their drinks, the little kitty snacks Elijah had been using to make an ally of Firenze, who now sat purring in Elijah's lap, getting hair on his $4,000 pants.

"I do," Giulia said unnecessarily. He could probably tell just by how unsettled she was.

"Just talk to her, Giulia… She sounds like a woman who would do anything to protect her family, her friends… There's no shame in protecting your family," Elijah said softly, with a gentle sigh, and a look in his eyes that said he didn't fully believe his own words.

She felt her eyes burning, too tired, hot and agitated and anxious. She wasn't usually a worrier but…this was _Liz_. "She _is_ my family… Liz is the only mother figure I ever had. She's the person my dad would turn to when he didn't know what to do with me… I don't… I don't want her to be ashamed of me… And I _don't_ – I _don't_ think we should take her memories."

"Have you told the others what you think?" Elijah asked. Giulia shook her head tiredly, rubbing her sore eyes. "What has Liz been told?"

"Not much, I don't think. She doesn't want to see Caroline," Giulia said softly.

"Then you must talk to her," Elijah said gently. "If Liz won't see her daughter, you are the only person who might get through to her. Perhaps telling her everything might alter how she sees things."

"She's spent her life distrusting and fearing vampires," Giulia said quietly.

"The older generations have been known, on occasion, to amend their ways," Elijah said, with a playful little smile. Giulia, tired as she was, smiled back, leaning over to give him a kiss. "And with the motivation of protecting one's daughter…"

"She thinks her daughter is gone," Giulia said sadly.

"Then engineer a situation that allows Caroline to prove her wrong," Elijah said calmly. Giulia smirked. _Engineer a situation_ …

"You mean manipulate Liz," she said, smiling. "I don't think that would help matters."

"Perhaps not," Elijah said, eyes on his sketchbook, pencil flowing lightly over the textured paper. Giulia sighed, pulling off her reading-glasses to rub her eyes, and set her work down on the coffee-table. She curled up tucked up by Elijah's side, and he turned his head to brush a kiss against her forehead as she rested her head against his shoulder, closing her eyes.

The intimacy of their relationship was…grounding. It was _raw_ , unsettling, it gripped her by her marrow, but she had never felt more… _free_. More relaxed, open. She didn't have to pretend; she hoped Elijah didn't feel he had to either, but they were still getting to know each other. She had never felt like this, this combination of excitement and grounding calm, lust that hit her like a freight-train, a gentle intimacy that made her feel they had known each other for years, reassured by the simple fact of his presence nearby. And they had the game – she considered it foreplay. And despite himself, Elijah was enjoying it, too. After a thousand years what constituted as _exciting_?

He wasn't the skydiving type.

"What will you do?" Elijah murmured. "With Elizabeth Forbes."

"She's not my only worry," Giulia mumbled, cuddling up and sighing. Mason, Katherine, she constantly worried about Caroline, now Elijah himself, and added to it all, Liz. "But I'll think of something." She always did.

Elijah cuddled up to her, ankles crossed on the coffee-table, drawing in his sketchbook, cheek resting against her head as she dozed, trying to get rid of a stress-headache. She had so much to do that she just needed to _nap_. She would wake, refreshed and focused.

* * *

The hours seemed interminable, left alone with nothing but her thoughts, and the devastation of knowing what her little girl had become. A monster. Soulless, vile, parasitic. Her little girl… And she had heard it, the _thing_ that now inhabited her baby, chatting with Giulia as they sorted through the accumulated junk Zach had only added to over the years, after teasing his parents about never throwing anything away. Perhaps more alarming than finding out her daughter had turned into a vampire was the realisation that everything she had thought she knew about the Salvatore family had been turned on its head. What _did_ she actually know about Zach Salvatore? His death…and what had truly happened to Joshua?

She had asked Damon to keep Caroline away from her; for one day, Giulia stayed away on her own. She supposed Caroline had another committee-meeting or maybe a date or perhaps Damon had done as she had asked and was physically restraining Caroline from loitering outside Liz's new cell like a guard-dog, because she hadn't heard from her in hours. By the food she was being brought on a tray, she knew Caroline had still been around. And she couldn't bring herself to eat a thing. It was strange Giulia hadn't come down to see her – unconsciously she had sort of become a mediator between Liz and her daughter, gentling Caroline's moods and providing an emotional sounding-board for Liz when she feared she was messing up everything. She had liked to think Giulia could come to her with anything. She so often helped heal ruptures between Liz and her daughter, without even realising how intrinsic she was to their small, dysfunctional family. How much Liz had always valued Giulia's friendship for her daughter. Strong, decisive and compassionate, Giulia had always been the _good_ influence, relaxed and self-assured, _kind_ , building up Caroline's confidence, picking her up after every let-down when Caroline wouldn't let her parents near her, pretending to brush things off, burying her devastation.

The two had always been a matched pair, dark and light. Optimism and a spine of steel. Tempering each other, harmonising their more dramatic traits. Devoted to each other, fiercely protective. Liz saw Giulia and Caroline together and was thrown back to high-school. Giulia had never reminded Liz of Zach, not even really of her mother Gianna, whom they had all known for so little time before she was gone, staggering and beautiful and running circles around Zach. It was Joshua she thought of when she saw Giulia, all easy confidence, sharp and deeply devoted.

But after the night and a full day had passed, Giulia appeared. She was quiet, but she didn't have the same unnatural light-foot that the vampires did, and Liz heard her coming. There were few times in her life she had been truly _scared_ – when Logan Fell had kidnapped Caroline had been the last real time. The shock of what had happened down in the Lockwood cellar had started to wear off, left with nothing but time to sit and _think_. Feet away from where her friend had been found with his neck snapped – by his daughter.

She remembered Giulia when the Sheriff's Department had responded to the call. Giulia's phone-call. Damon and Stefan hadn't been anywhere near. Giulia had found her dad here in the basement. She had been so quiet, so calm and closed-off. Liz knew Caroline like the back of her hand, knew when she was keeping secrets, when she was upset, when she was deeply unhappy, when she was hiding something bad or trying to do something sweet. Giulia was something else altogether; she had always been the hardest to read. People only ever saw of Giulia what she wanted them to see – something she had learned from Zach. Something too like Joshua for Liz to ever ignore. She worried about Caroline before she even woke up every morning – since Zach's death, anxiousness over Giulia followed swiftly. Because she _never_ knew what was going on in Giulia's head. That worried her more than a lot of things.

Giulia appeared, quiet and dressed for the sun, a hairband around her wrist, long hair falling in front of her face. She carried a tray loaded with Liz's favourite sandwich from the good diner downtown, a bag of Ruffles, an iced-tea and a cupcake. That had Caroline written all over it, and Liz stared from the perfect swirl of powder-pink frosting to Giulia, who set the tray down on the chair by her cot, retrieving an old wicker basket full of _things_.

"There's an old CD-Walkman and Caroline brought over your favourite CDs," Giulia mumbled, an instant tell something was wrong. If Giulia _wanted_ people to know something was up, she was more than capable of letting the walls down – she just rarely did. Like her dad she was completely self-sufficient, emotionally reliant only on herself, physically capable and undemanding. "And…there's _Gulliver's Travels_ , I know that was on your book Bucket List last summer…"

She didn't raise her face, didn't meet Liz's eye. That wasn't Giulia. It was one more indication how warped everything had become. Giulia had never been afraid to approach her before. She said softly, "I'm surprised you haven't come to see me."

Giulia fiddled with the hem of her dark sundress. "I didn't want to."

"Why not?" Liz asked, surprised. She often forgot Giulia was only seventeen; she was fearless and mature and motivated. Liz had been worrying she was headed to a severe psychotic break when the walls she put up with her intelligence shattered from overwork. She'd seen brilliant people burn out far too quickly when they were put under severe pressure, the way Giulia, she imagined, had been under strain since Stefan and Damon had come to town.

"I couldn't bear you looking at me differently," Giulia said softly, in a voice so quiet and young, suddenly she was seeing the seventeen-year-old again. The one who painted her toenails with Caroline, created a voodoo doll at the summer Hay Maze to punish Tyler Lockwood, was teased by her friends for falling asleep during Nicholas Sparks movies, fell asleep during her math classes at school, rolled her eyes but grudgingly accepted that Caroline had signed her up to be Student Council Treasurer. She gave a weird little shrug, turning away in visible discomfort. Giulia's poker-face was so good Liz wished she could have used her to train her guys at the Sheriff's Department how to interview suspects. She'd never give anything away. There were few ways Liz knew how to get Giulia to open up.

One had always been to initiate a conversation by asking about her dad, a man Giulia had loved more than anyone except perhaps Caroline. She had been sitting in this cell, reflecting how it had always made the fine hairs prickle on the back of her neck, knowing this place was down here, that she had to come down here with Zach to pick up the vervain delivery for the Council… Watching the coroners struggling to wheel Zach out of this cluttered cellar on a gurney had replayed in her mind so many times, trying to reconcile the situation in her head, how she had _thought_ his death had occurred, and her dread now that she had discovered the horrifying secrets of the Salvatore family.

The innate detective in her wanted to ask – couldn't bear the answers, but needed to know. Part of her was relieved they were going to compel her to forget her memories of all she had discovered since Mason suggested he spike the lemonade with vervain. The other part, the Sheriff part, the protective mom and community leader duty-bound to protect people, wanted to know, to understand everything. What had happened, what answers could she now find to questions she hadn't even known to ask? The mysterious disappearances, the animal-attacks, that gruesome murder in Grove Hill, cold-cases she had inherited from her predecessors, each as frustrated as the last at the lack of answers.

Joshua's Missing Persons file was one she had returned to more and more often as things had deteriorated between her and Bill – the one she had turned to when Zach came to her at the Sheriff's Department, three years out of the Academy, to report his brother as missing. They'd tracked his beloved _Impala_ to a highway heading toward Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, covered with parking-tickets. She wondered whether Damon and Stefan Salvatore had been anywhere near Philadelphia when Joshua had vanished into thin air.

To learn Zach's death might not have been an accident, to think that Joshua may have been dead _long_ ago and that Zach might have been forced to protect those responsible for his murder because of family duty…it was too appalling to think bear thinking about. But Giulia had a gentle candour, people tended to listen to her when she spoke; as long as Liz was still under vervain, not compelled to forget everything, Giulia might honour that Liz now knew the secret, tell her the things she desperately needed to hear to at least make sense of _some_ of this mess.

"What happened to your dad?" she asked softly, as Giulia turned to leave the room. She paused, eyes glowing in the dim light of the murky, cluttered corridor. For a brief moment, her expression flickered. Her tongue swiped along her lower-lip, eyes bright, thinking quickly.

"If I told you that, I'd…have to start at the beginning," she said. "Tell you _everything_ , a century and a half of history. The town history that… _we_ , the Salvatore family, have kept from everyone. And…I don't think you really want to know, not if you're going to have your memories buried by compulsion."

"Why wouldn't I want to know?" Liz asked quietly. The way Giulia's mind worked was a wonderful, scary thing. Listening to her chat with Caroline always surprised her, amused her. She was far too quick. Zach had always known that – Liz sighed internally, recognising why Zach had felt it so important Giulia sit in on Council meetings.

"Because if you knew everything, you wouldn't _want_ to forget," Giulia sighed softly. "You'd want to use what you know to protect the town. And…I can't change Damon's mind if he feels it's safer for everyone if you don't remember." She said it sadly, almost tired, with that extraordinary insight she had always possessed, the ability to guess people's motivations, plan twelve steps ahead. She would make a fine detective. Maybe FBI. She wondered briefly how many unexplained, gruesome deaths were the work of her vampire relatives.

Liz frowned subtly, watching Giulia. She didn't look like she was acting out of fear of Stefan or Damon; and Liz knew her too well to believe she was suffering from Stockholm Syndrome. She was too _aware_. She'd seen Giulia arguing back, rolling her eyes, the same girl she had always known, except now Liz was seeing what _Giulia_ had always known. Reflecting, it explained a lot about Giulia's attitude, her easy confidence, her thoughtfulness – and her devotion to looking after Caroline.

"Giulia…please," Liz said softly, eyeing the floor outside her cell. She had been fixated on the place Zach had been found, dead, by his little girl. How could Giulia still bear to _look_ at Stefan and Damon, surely they had been involved…unless they had compelled Giulia to overlook that they had been the cause of her father's death – but, she recalled…Zach hadn't been drained of blood. Had it not been them? "Your dad was my friend. Since we were babies… What happened to him?"

Giulia sighed heavily, glancing into the corridor, then licked her lips, reached into the wicker-basket. She picked two crystal tumblers out of it, and a squat bottle of bourbon. Liz's favourite, the sweet, slightly peaty one she always associated with Joshua, sneaking it behind the bleachers at pep-rallies, by the old well, the good stuff his dad taught him how to drink after one too many trips to New Orleans. Joseph and Doll Salvatore, oh, they loved a good party. And a smile curled the corners of Liz's lips as she watched Giulia casually pour a couple fingers of bourbon into each glass. Even if Zach had always been the quiet one, the introvert, some spirit of Doll and Jo and Joshua had lived on in Giulia. Liz was not unaware of Giulia's more controversial habits – usually, she turned a blind eye because Giulia was _always_ the one who sobered up the instant anything happened, taking charge of the situation, looking after her friends. She didn't know how many times a legless Giulia had managed to successfully sneak a drunk Caroline into her room after curfew, hiding Caroline's hangovers so Liz wouldn't think less of her daughter because she knew how important it was to Caroline not to be _that_ girl. The last few months, Giulia Salvatore had gotten incredibly good at pretending to be sober.

"So, imagine it's 1864," Giulia sighed, handing Liz one of the tumblers, and sat herself down on the cot beside Liz. She had to hand it to Giulia, she was a wonderful story-teller. Unbiased, truthful, but entrancing, she half-believed everything Giulia told her, starting with an orphan girl's arrival in Mystic Falls after Atlanta had burned. The twist on the Lockwoods' involvement; the real reason for the fire; and why Damon had returned to town after one hundred and fifty years. She told Liz about the origins of a brotherly feud that had spanned decades and multiple continents; of Giuseppe Salvatore shooting his own sons in the back, his untimely but not underserved murder at the hands of his younger-son. The choices Damon and Stefan made with their diets – horrifyingly, why Stefan chose to drink animal-blood, as she had witnessed in the Lockwood cellar. It was a story, told in sequential order, the details too rich, Giulia's delivery too tired and honest to second-guess, making her head spin, but she listened, not interrupting. Just let Giulia talk. Once she had started, Liz wondered if she could make herself stop; and it occurred to Liz that since Zach's death, Giulia had had no-one to share this secret with. This intense family-history.

Oh, Elena Gilbert knew, she was told. Giulia had actually called her a 'terrier', in her stubbornness and refusal to give up hunting until she got to the bottom of the mystery that was Stefan Salvatore, the quiet loner who had come to town and made waves at Mystic Falls High, brief star of the football team, dating the once popular, now-orphaned beautiful Elena Gilbert, cousin to Giulia Salvatore, the girl everyone thought couldn't _get_ any cooler, with her vintage car, her creepy mansion, her cheekbones and eyes. And once Elena had learned the secret, others had started to unfold. Bonnie Bennett was a witch – just like her grandmother, who had sat on the Founders' Council longer than Liz had been alive. Jeremy Gilbert had discovered the secret when a little vampire Anna he had been dating had put things into play to get her mother out of a mystically-sealed tomb – a tomb full of desiccated vampires Giulia had put to flame to ensure the safety of the town, after releasing two and realising the girl Damon had been trying to save, the girl he had loved for a hundred and fifty years, had never been inside it at all.

She answered a lot of questions Liz had had over the last few months, disappearances she knew about, confirming some she didn't – the vampire Logan Fell had been killed not by Damon or Stefan but by vampire-hunter Alaric Saltzman – the strange deaths, the farmhouse fire outside of town, Vikki Donovan's fate, John Gilbert's attack. Tyler Lockwood's accident; Caroline being put in the hospital – Richard Lockwood's death. Giulia explained her father's death in a detached way, calm and tired. She blamed both Salvatore brothers, and Elena Gilbert for being Stefan's motivating factor in trying to desiccate Damon in the very cell Liz was now being held.

"You still stand by them, protect them?" she frowned. "They're still your friends."

"Damon is," Giulia corrected on a sigh, plucking at the fabric of her sundress absently. "Stefan and I have never been close." Because he was a vampire who ripped people apart if he fed on human-blood, and he had always been anxious about her fragility as a human child.

"But they killed your dad," she said softly.

"I know. But I don't want to spend my life _angry_ at them," Giulia said softly. "Destroying _my_ life over it… I don't think Dad would want that, ruining my own life trying to avenge his death." Liz sighed; she was absolutely right.

The story continued. The revelations about Elena, her biological parentage – Liz had already known Grayson and Miranda had adopted the abandoned baby when her teenage mother disappeared shortly after delivery, but had no idea the child's father was John Gilbert. But that was typical John – always relying on his older-brother to clean up his messes, pushing away any responsibility and swaggering off, superbly arrogant. And Elena's biological mother was Caroline's history-teacher Alaric Saltzman's dead – _vampire_ – wife, a professor of parapsychology at Duke; Damon had turned her, at her request, leaving Ric Saltzman's world spinning, bent on finding her – finding the vampire who had killed her, hidden her body. Until they all realised Isobel was "still, technically-ish, alive," Giulia sighed, with a tiny grimace.

In tune to the very subtle emotional tells of her daughter's best-friend, a girl Liz had always looked on with a deeply maternal instinct, she saw the morose dip to Giulia's lips, the way her eyes shadowed, and she knew, even telling the story of how Elena, who had lost her parents in one devastating accident, had been given another chance with an undying birth-mother and a biological-father who had been on the periphery of her family since birth, working with the Founders' Council to ensure the little girl would always be safe from the monsters who went bump in the night, had taken its toll on Giulia. There had to be some lingering resentment, a feeling of unfairness, that Elena had been handed another set of parents to replace the old ones, when Giulia was a girl who had never known what it meant to be hugged by a mother. No mother, no brothers and sisters, an introverted father whose own brother had disappeared into the ether over twenty years ago. The two of them alone in this creepy old house with nothing but monsters.

The one thing Giulia seemed uncomfortable talking about to her was Caroline. But she seemed to force herself to, possibly trying to enforce on Liz that… "It wasn't her fault."

"Then whose is it?" Liz asked tersely. Giulia sighed, glancing at her.

"A lot of people's." The story went on. After Caroline had been wheeled into recovery following Tyler Lockwood's accident, Damon had slipped Caroline some of his blood to ensure her survival. That surprised Liz, and her mind flew to _how_ Caroline had been turned into a vampire – "simply ingesting vampire blood doesn't turn you, any more than a vampire biting you would. It actually heals you."

"So then how are people turned into vampires?" Liz asked, frowning. The journals mentioned nothing on this. But listening to Giulia she realised just how out of date, and out of _touch_ , the journals were. Giulia had explained how Damon, Stefan and even Caroline could walk in the sun without pain or death, but she doubted that vampires had _evolved_ as a species since the Civil War. Fundamentally the dead were incapable of evolution.

"Like Buffy said, it's a whole lot of _sucking_ – you have to die with vampire-blood in your system," Giulia sighed, replenishing Liz's glass, opening the bag of Ruffles she had brought in for Liz; while she had listened, Liz had consumed her favourite sandwich, too distracted not to realise Giulia was manipulating her out of her hunger-strike. "When you wake, you have to either feed on human blood and transition into a vampire, or you die."

"So Stefan and Damon…"

"Katherine Pierce had been slipping them blood for weeks, compelling them to forget – well, compelling Stefan. Damon _wanted_ to turn, at least when he'd thought he would be spending his eternity with Katherine," Giulia said. "When he and Stefan tried to save Katherine when the Founders rounded up the vampires, Giuseppe Salvatore shot them both in the back… When Damon thought Katherine had burned in the fire, he was ready to die. Stefan transitioned first; then he made Damon."

"And…?" Liz trailed off, couldn't bear to even say her daughter's name out loud let alone think of the implications.

"Katherine Pierce showed up at the Lockwood mansion during Richard's wake," Giulia said, and her expression turned very dark. "Waltzed right in, knowing no-one could do anything. She'd already masqueraded as Elena, kissing Damon, stabbing John Gilbert. Apparently she met Stefan. Words were exchanged. None of them good. _Bonnie_ told Katherine about Damon having given Caroline his blood, not even realising she wasn't talking to Elena… After Stefan pissed her off, Katherine killed Caroline, knowing she'd go into transition."

"And…she _fed_ to complete the transition?"

"Caroline told me the guy in the next room was having a fresh blood-transfusion," Giulia sighed. "She could smell it. I mean, vampires don't _have_ to kill to feed. Most don't, especially these days. Too much bother to hide the bodies. But compelling people to forget after snacking on them is easy… A lot of vampires survive off blood-bags if they're trying to keep a low-profile. It's not as good – imagine living off microwave Salisbury steaks, when you _could_ go to the steakhouse and have a juicy medium-rare butter-seared filet." Liz stared at Giulia; perhaps the second glass of bourbon wasn't a good idea, but her mind was spinning – the sheer amount of information she was trying to absorb was staggering. Giulia had warned her, a hundred and fifty years' worth of history. "But they can exist without leaving a trail of bodies."

"But Damon does kill."

"Not recently," Giulia said. She sighed heavily. "He only did when he first came back to town to make Stefan anxious. He didn't think he'd be sticking around, otherwise, well…he can be _very_ discreet when he wants to be."

"So I've learned," Liz said drily. She gazed at the entrance to her cell, the place Zach had been found dead bathed in insipid white light from flickering old bulbs. There was a lot to process – too much. And Giulia had been right, as she so often was with Caroline; Liz didn't _want_ to forget anything. All she had learned from Giulia was far too valuable in the protection of her town, a community she had pledged her life to safeguard. If anyone could say anything of her, it was that Liz Forbes had always been passionate about upholding the oath she took when she graduated the Academy. Not out of a sense of obligation – it was _personal_ for her. To protect people. Catch the bad-guys. See her community thrive. In a self-serving way Damon had often helped her do that, hunting Logan Fell as much a personal vendetta as his civic duty, trying to ingratiate himself with the most approachable of the Council members by saving her daughter from a manic, spiteful vampire. The number of disappearances and deaths had dropped off remarkably in the last few months, they had started to hope they had skated through the bad patch. Until John Gilbert had arrived, stirring everyone up, arrogant and slimy, getting everyone riled and panicky again.

She sighed. "So this Katherine woman… She's dangerous."

"Very," Giulia sighed. "Five-hundred years old, and strong. Vengeful, selfish, manipulative and heartless. She'll not let anyone get in the way of her getting what she wants."

"And what does she want?" Liz asked.

"She claims she wants Stefan," Giulia said, in a suspiciously light tone.

"And you don't believe that," Liz guessed. Giulia's smile was ironic, and she shook her head. Liz sighed, resting back against the wall. The second dose of bourbon had been ill-advised. "You think she and Mason Lockwood are up to something."

She recalled the impossible details Giulia had provided on the Lockwood family legacy – a history they themselves had forgotten. It explained the Mayor's death, why Tyler had lost control of his car that night. At least, as much as them bearing a latent werewolf gene in their DNA could explain anything! According to Giulia, the device John Gilbert had used on the vampires they had known were coming to town was designed not just to incapacitate vampires – it had been spelled by the witch, Sheila Bennett's great-grandmother Emily Bennett to cause debilitating pain to any supernatural being. According to Giulia, the spell caused such creatures to suffer constant brain aneurysms to the point of unconsciousness – being immortal, vampires would heal, but when it was done over and over again…

"No, I believe _Katherine_ is up to something," Giulia said. "She's just using Mason to get what she wants. As soon as she has it, he's utterly expendable. Katherine doesn't believe in loose ends."

"So a vampire is using a werewolf for some reason," Liz frowned, shaking her head on a sigh. This was too much. She blurted, " _How_ can Mason be a werewolf? I watched him grow up!"

"It's a latent gene passed down through the Lockwood family," Giulia said. "I'm not sure I believe that the origin of the werewolf species is entirely Native American – there are instances of men turning into beasts all over the world – but according to Jeremy who heard it from Tyler who was told by Mason, the gene is triggered when you take someone's life. An accident or murder, either way, you turn into a wolf on full-moons."

"Richard and Tyler aren't werewolves, then," Liz sighed. This conversation was far more than she had expected; but she couldn't stop asking questions. Her mind was working too hard. "So George Lockwood used the vampires created by Katherine to mask his own murders on full-moons, and worked with Katherine to get rid of the vampires when she wanted to fake her death."

"And she gave George something he wanted in return," Giulia mused, "something valuable. I'm still reading the Lockwood journals to figure out what."

"Lockwood journals?" Liz blurted. "I thought the family lost those along with everything else when their plantation as burned to the ground."

"No, they just lied," Giulia shrugged. "Although I'm not sure anyone in the family actually read them until Richard and Mason's dad triggered the curse during the Vietnam War."

"He was killed in an animal-attack," Liz murmured. She remembered the day Richard had found out about his dad's death.

"I don't think Stefan and Damon had anything to do with that," Giulia said thoughtfully.

"No, he was torn apart, literally limb from limb," Liz said, clearing her throat. "So Mason is a werewolf. What does that mean?"

"I don't know," Giulia said slowly. "But I mean to find out." She gave Liz a sidelong glance, explaining, "Damon and Stefan both strangely seem to agree that killing Mason is the way forward – he knows about them, he's tried to expose them, get them killed, and he can't be compelled away. More than that, he's allied with Katherine. But I don't know… If the rumours are true, a werewolf-bite can kill a vampire. As long as Stefan, Damon and Caroline take precautions every full-moon, there's no reason we couldn't use Mason's presence as a deterrent to stop _other_ vampires moving into town."

Liz glanced at Giulia, and after processing what she had said several times over, she smiled. Related as she was to vampires, loyal to the family legacy of protecting them, Giulia had nevertheless been raised by a man devoted to protecting the friends he had in his hometown, his daughter. Giulia had been raised with a very strong sense of right and wrong, of loyalty; she was too bright not to think about the possibilities, to examine the repercussions from every angle before acting. Giulia did not let her dad down.

"Do you intend to turn Mystic Falls into a sanctuary for supernaturals?" Liz asked, not unkindly. She was curious how Giulia's mind was working.

"Mm. No. Just safe for Stefan and Damon and Caroline," she said thoughtfully, shrugging. "I'm all but officially on the Council now, Carol has asked Damon to head it. He's the only viable option besides you, and you have your hands full with the Sheriff's Department…"

"Why do you say he's the only viable option?" Liz asked curiously.

"The others are idiots – not Meredith; she's medically curious about vampires, she doesn't buy into the hate," Giulia mused. "Carol never took much interest beyond wearing vervain. Pastor Young believes in Creationism, which is his right but it has _nothing_ to do with vampires. The other Council members view it as more of a secret-society to feel superior over everyone else than any sort of real dedication to the cause… I think it needs a change."

"The Council?"

"Yeah. It's a bunch of entitled pricks swaggering in back-rooms sipping expensive liquor, getting a high off the superiority of knowing the secret of the supernatural – but their intel is outdated, their prejudice is _horrifying_ and belongs back in the 1930s when lynch-mobs were still the rage," Giulia said, her eyes lighting up with that _passion_ Liz knew well. "It's more a club to discuss how to keep big corporate businesses away from developing Mystic Falls and protect the interests of the select golden families than safeguard the entire community."

"And you, you would work _with_ these…these _people_ to keep the town safe?" Liz said, gazing at Giulia. She had to admit, listening to what Giulia had told her, knowing what she did of Damon and Stefan's abilities, the deterrent of a werewolf's bite making even Damon anxious, well… _better the devil you know_. Giulia glanced at Liz, looking sad.

"Do you know how difficult it is for Stefan and Damon? They can't settle anywhere for more than a few years before people get suspicious," she said softly. She sighed. "It'll be the same for Caroline… I want to make sure they always know they'll be safe if they come home – and make sure they know _they_ 'll be asked to ensure the safety of the town when they do. Reciprocity… Besides, Damon's far too territorial to let other people come and torment the people _he_ likes to play with. And he's not all bad, you know… He really does respect you, Liz."

She didn't want to think about that for the moment; it was all too unsettling.

"You said vampires can…can turn off their emotions," Liz said thoughtfully.

"That's what they say. I'm not so sure."

"Wouldn't they know better than you?" Liz smiled.

"I suppose… From what I have seen of vampires without their 'humanity', they're actually just vicious little bitches," Giulia said, and Liz chuckled, eyeing the perfect pink swirl of frosting on that tempting cupcake. Caught for a brief second, thinking that Caroline had probably used the last of the butter and powdered-sugar in the house, she got a sudden chill. _Caroline_. "But I would think that the lack of emotions would translate to something like suffering intense depression. For example, love isn't the opposite of hate."

"Then what is?"

"Indifference," Giulia murmured. "I think love and hate are two emotions that branch out from indifference. The motivations from hatred and love are remarkably similar… Anyway, I believe vampires use their 'no humanity switch' to ignore their conscience. There was a time when turning off his emotions was the only way Damon could survive. Stefan turned his emotions off to not feel _guilt_. Emotions are heightened as a vampire, so it's not that they're _evil_ because they react so strongly, it's because they feel with such intensity. Being a vampire doesn't change who a person is – it heightens every aspect of their personality, brings out their best traits, magnifies them…"

If Liz hadn't known her better, she might have thought Giulia was trying to mend things between her and Caroline. But she did know Giulia; that wasn't her style. When she got too frustrated by things, she'd explode with a well-placed, proverbial slap to bring them out of their drama.

She had given Liz the facts, as she knew them. Told them the history Liz had never had any idea about. Given her something to think about in this hell, something she could fixate on while trying to avoid the thought of _Caroline_ …

And she did think about everything Giulia had told her, long after Giulia had traipsed back upstairs after promising to bring down _War and Peace_ , a novel Liz had been determined to read since high-school.

She wished she had a pen and paper to write everything down, notes she could find later and decipher. But if her mind was wiped of the memories of writing them in the first place, would she start second-guessing her sanity, wonder whether someone had forged her handwriting. What she had been thinking, listening to Giulia's stories, half-agreeing with Giulia's idea of enlightening the Council and moving them in a different direction to better safeguard the town using the means at their disposal, would look to her, if viewed without the knowledge of the supernatural she had gained just from Giulia talking to her, as if someone was trying to manipulate her into altering things for the benefit of the vampires.

The vampires. Of whom Caroline was now one.

* * *

 **A.N.** : Please review. I just love Liz so, so, so, so much. And I just watched the TVD episode where Klaus tells Caroline he was sorry to hear about Liz's death… Kinda love the idea of Elijah swooping in to help Caroline and the twins, since Klaus is disappeared from New Orleans (ugh, with _Hayley_ – she'll be cropping up soon in this story, BTW).


	15. Wishing Well

**A.N.** : Hello, m'dears. So, big announcement: I'm going travelling for 9 weeks. Not sure if I'm taking an iPad with me yet so if I write it'll be on _paper_ \- how very Dickensian! Anyway, forwarning; I've got a few more chapters that I'd like to update before I go...

* * *

 **Dangerous Beauty**

15

 _Wishing Well_

* * *

"This is maudlin. Weren't we just here, doing this?"

"Last time didn't count," Caroline said. "There was cake involved. You can't really be grieving when you're eating strawberry shortcake."

"I'll have you know you can absolutely be grieving while consuming any number of baked goods," Giulia said, sipping her _apple juice_.

"This sucks," Caroline sighed.

"I know, right. It is _such_ a nice day. Way too perfect to be ruined attending a funeral," Giulia said, shaking her head. Her feelings on the Mayor's death were mixed, given that it had been _his_ plan in the first place that had backfired with tragic results. He had allied with John Gilbert, almost got Damon and Stefan killed – hurt his own son, Giulia herself, had led to Caroline being put in the hospital. Plus, he was an abusive dick who drove his wife to drink and pulled a Dan Scott on Tyler about football.

"Guys, keep your voices down," Elena hissed, giving them a _look_ , and Giulia sighed heavily. The atmosphere at the Lockwood mansion was bored and subdued, wishing to be anywhere but here. It was a _sea_ of black. Suits and appropriately-high heels. The remnants of Dr Gilbert's old office had finally been excavated, Mayor Lockwood's remains identified. They had just come from the funeral; Mayor Lockwood's five-hundred closest friends and colleagues had turned out to say goodbye in full ceremony, the town had held a moment of silence in the town square.

"We should be getting this house ready for the Masquerade Ball," Caroline said indignantly, crossing her arms over her chest while Giulia drained her _apple juice_ and Caroline indicated the bartender, compelled to keep their drinks refreshed, to pour her another finger of bourbon. "I _love_ the Masquerade Ball and I already had my mask delivered and it was the Mayor's favourite party, too, so maybe we could've like honoured him _that way_ by having an amazing party than being stuffed inside this house listening to Lola Fell sniffle in the background and we all have to ignore the fact we know she was his _mistress_."

"He was all class," Giulia sniffed.

"Didn't he make a pass at you?"

"Only when he was drunk," Giulia shrugged, shuddering. "Carol's really upped her canapé-game, these are fabulous." She plucked another refreshing crab and cucumber canapé from a passing waiter. "I'm starving."

"Don't worry, I've already compelled the head caterer to set aside a platter of all the different canapés for us for me to pick up when we leave," Caroline grinned. "Figured since you're driving you _might_ need to soak up some of that 'apple juice' before we head over to the swimming-hole. I don't want you drowning in the creek."

"Your concern is appreciated," Giulia said, grinning lazily.

"Could you two be any more insensitive?" Elena scoffed.

"We _could_ go over to Carol and tell her that her husband had affairs with _half_ the women between the age of twenty-one and thirty-five in this room," Giulia remarked thoughtfully. "You _do_ realise the Mayor died trying to murder Stefan and Damon, right?"

"I don't think he knew what Stefan and Damon are," Elena said.

"But Mason does," Caroline said softly, sipping her own drink and carefully watching the aforementioned surfer. The guy looked _delicious_ as a prosciutto-wrapped honey-drizzled, bleu-cheese stuffed fig she stole from another waiter. Giulia followed Caroline's gaze, admiring the man. He was _made_ for _GQ_ cover-shoots. And he had looked like he was having a mild heart-attack when Giulia had arrived at the funeral with Stefan and Damon suited and booted in their finest, ready to pay their respects for the Mayor. Very much alive.

In fairness to Mason, his first thought had been for the Sheriff. He had asked what they had done with Liz Forbes. She was still in the basement; after their chat, Giulia had approached Damon.

" _I don't think we should erase Liz's memories," she said, handing Damon a fresh bourbon._

"Oh, really?" he smirked. "And why's that?"

"Because we're smarter than that," Giulia said, perching on the arm of the sofa. "If we got the Sheriff on board, that's already two people leading the Council on _our_ side. And she has command of the entire Department, that is a lot of resources we could have at our disposal to keep you and Stefan and Caroline protected. It could give us an edge against Katherine."

"And Caroline has absolutely nothing to do with it?" Damon said, giving her a look.

"Caroline wouldn't ask to _not_ compel her mother, she thinks Liz hates and wants to kill her," she said, on a sigh. "She's afraid of Liz knowing what she is."

"But you, you're not?" Damon frowned.

"Don't underestimate Liz's love for her daughter," Giulia said softly. "This has been a huge shock she's just received…we just have to give them time to bond despite it."

"And how long will _that_ take?" Damon rolled his eyes. "Can't keep the _Sheriff_ kidnapped in our basement for long. Especially with the story she has _food poisoning_. If she stays off sick too long and doesn't show up at the ER, people are going to get suspicious."

"Don't worry, I've called Meredith."

"Wait, now Sexy Doctor Lady knows?!" Damon blurted incredulously.

"She's the only person on the Council who's not a halfwit. Plus, she and I have a deal."

"What kind of a deal?"

"You know that five-year-old I was telling you about? The one who was rushed to the ER after a pick-up reversed into her?" Giulia asked, and Damon nodded slowly. "Well, she's back at kindergarten with scabbed knees and messy braids because of you."

"So…when you asked me for a donation of my blood that you could keep on ice in case Elena or Jeremy or Jenna gets hurt and I wasn't there…"

"Yeah, I gave it to Meredith. Payment for that last huge icebox of donated blood-bags I brought over," Giulia said, smiling smugly. "Whenever there's a blood-drive she's going to siphon off a case for you all."

"Huh," Damon stared at her. "And you trust Meredith?"

"Yup," Giulia nodded. "A pint of your blood for a chest of blood-bags. You didn't have to compel or steal, it's all covered up – it could be just the tip of the iceberg if we got Liz on board. I think we should work on turning the Council into something that protects the supernatural residents of Mystic Falls to ensure the safety of the town."

"What, so we're like supernatural guard-dogs? Keeping away the monsters that go bump in the night?" Damon smirked.

"You're too territorial to want other vampires coming in here messing up what you've built, you've already proven that," Giulia said.

"And how would you get rid of the Council members you don't like?" Damon smirked. "Have a dinner-party?"

" _I_ control vervain distribution," Giulia smiled. She rolled her eyes, "And the Council members think vervain smells like rose and lavender – it would _not_ be hard to switch up what I give them. It wouldn't be instantaneous but we could work person to person, making sure we get to their family-members, making sure they forget everything about the supernatural. Keep only the people we trust or who are clever and unprejudiced enough, genuinely interested in protecting the town. Start recruiting new members who are clever and kind and tolerant."

"And end a hundred and fifty-year-old town institution!" Damon gasped.

"Yes. This is the revolution," Giulia said drily. "But don't you think it makes sense?"

"I do. Worryingly, I do," Damon nodded. He pointed at her, frowning. "Don't go giving away my blood ever again."

"I won't," Giulia said, smiling easily. "Caroline's offered to donate her blood directly to Meredith. You know how much time Caroline and I spend at the children's hospice."

"Just make sure none of those kids die with vampire blood in their system," Damon sighed wearily. "Little kiddie vamps? Did you not read Anne Rice?"

"Oh, don't worry," Giulia said sadly. "We know there's no hope for those kids. But the ones at the hospital, they're okay. We're still a little uncertain about whether it's safe to use it in the leukaemia ward."

"It'll stave off the inevitable for a little while," Damon said, eyes on the fire. She was almost dripping with sweat – there was no air-conditioning system at the Boarding House, and he had lit a _fire_. The sun had set but it was getting warmer in the evenings. "But not forever. And they'd have to be given a continuous supply, a little every day, to heal the body over and over again before they can die…" He shrugged, and Giulia wondered how he knew that. He glanced at Giulia, with a slight wince. "Don't give it to cancer patients." Giulia nodded.

"I'll tell Meredith," she said. Damon sighed, giving her a sly, sidelong look.

"You've already started putting things in place to overthrow the Council, haven't you," he guessed. Caroline turning had prompted Giulia to act on what she had been thinking since her dad had truly initiated her into the Council.

"I would've made a _glorious_ Borgia," she sighed, glancing at the bookshelf where the old family copy of _The Prince_ by Machiavelli still rested.

Damon sighed, glancing at Giulia. He flicked his eyes over her. "Fine. We give Vampire Barbie the opportunity to bring Liz on board…if not, I'll compel her myself," he warned, and Giulia smiled.

"Thank you," she beamed, leaning down to plant a kiss on his cheek. "I knew you loved Liz."

"I do not love Liz."

"You do. You're too like me not to. We can't help it, there's something about those Forbes women," Giulia chuckled. "There's a reason you already think of her as your friend."

"Truthfully it'd be too much hassle to break in a new sheriff," Damon said, and Giulia snorted, taking his tumbler to steal a sip of bourbon.

"Hey, guys," a heavy voice sighed, and Giulia blinked, focusing on Tyler. He stood in front of them, in his best suit, holding a 7Up that was almost certainly more vodka than lemon-lime.

"Hey," Caroline said gently, giving him a hug.

"You look like you're ready to get out of here," Giulia said, observing him.

"Dude, _so_ ready," Tyler sighed, shaking his head. "Mason said he'd cover for me if I wanted to sneak off. Day's way too nice not to head to the swimming-hole. Got five kegs and burgers if you guys wanna come, party will be in full swing by the time we get there."

"Sure," Giulia grinned, and Caroline beamed.

"Absolutely."

"I think my mom's gonna pop some of her sleeping-pills tonight, if you guys wanted to crash here," Tyler said, shrugging. "She's usually still out pretty late in the mornings."

"Not for me, thank you," Giulia smiled. "But we could all meet tomorrow-morning for breakfast. Or a run."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I've got Caroline _jogging_ ," Giulia said, supremely pleased with herself. Caroline had decided that if she wasn't going to put on a single ounce despite how many trays of loaded chilli-cheese nachos she ate, she at least needed to be seen to maintain a healthy exercise regime: Tyler had probably seen them at the gym, Giulia teaching Caroline how to fight. At Jenna's barbecue she had convinced Giulia (threatening to compel the local bartenders and Booze Barn employees not to sell to her if she didn't agree) and Jenna to join a really relaxed Pilates class that Meredith had been going to for years. They had been chatting about it after agreeing that Caroline would supply Meredith with her blood in exchange for blood-bags. Tyler raised his eyebrows at Caroline, whom he'd never really spent much time with to really see the real Car. He'd always thought of her as a "bitchy, neurotic control-freak twit". And that was a direct quote.

"Jog and breakfast tomorrow?" Tyler asked, and Giulia nodded, smiling. "I'll see you guys at the swimming-hole later. I'm gonna try to leave soon. I've already stolen a bottle of whisky from the bar if you guys want shots later."

"Absolutely," Caroline grinned. Tyler nodded and shuffled away, already deep in his spiked drink.

"Okay, I am like _so_ ready to go now," Caroline muttered to her, and Giulia chuckled softly. "Did you bring the icebox like I asked?"

"Yeah. Fifths and blood-bags in the trunk of my car," Giulia said.

"Even though the trunk of your car is at the _front_ of your car," Caroline said, and Giulia smiled. It had always bothered Caroline that Giulia's car was the wrong way round. Giulia glanced across the room at Damon, who was glowering smugly at Mason as he sipped top-shelf bourbon, schmoozing the crowd of Mystic Falls' elite, and smiled when she saw Sheila Bennett at the bar, not an unusual sight given her reputation for being a lush, known to be spotted by students grading papers at the best bars in Richmond. She hadn't seen her favourite professor for a while, due to spring break, although they had spoken on the phone. If there was anyone Giulia trusted could keep her secrets and not get emotionally invested in what she was asking her to do, it was Grams. After all, she had agreed to help Giulia despite Bonnie obviously having told her everything about what happened the night of the carnival.

"Hello, Giulia," she said softly, after giving her a one-armed hug. "Nice to see you, Caroline."

"Hi, Miss Sheila," Caroline smiled warmly. Grams _did_ know what Caroline now was; but unlike her granddaughter, she didn't look at Caroline with unveiled loathing and distrust. She was old and wise enough to know she had to take people on individual cases; nothing was black and white. Not all vampires were evil, just as not all witches were _good_. Miss Sheila took her drink from the bartender, and Giulia finished her drink, jumping a little when her phone buzzed. She checked her phone, raising an eyebrow.

"Text from Stefan," she murmured, glancing up at Caroline. She glanced around, Mason Lockwood busy with the cougars of Mystic Falls; she grabbed Caroline's hand and led the way over to Carol, giving their condolences and making their goodbyes.

"Okay, what's going on?" Caroline asked, as Giulia led the way into the woods. Damon had given them all a ride over to the Lockwood house, Giulia had parked her car at the swimming-hole knowing the party would be ongoing until there were signs of a lightning-storm – there weren't any, and they still had a week left before school started again.

"Stefan thinks that moonstone Jeremy heard about from Tyler that Mason wants is at the well, you know, the one we used to play at," Giulia said, and Caroline nodded, striding along beside her. In short, pretty black dresses and heels, they strode through the woods.

"Why does Stefan think the moonstone is in the well?" Caroline asked.

"Sheila Bennett got a reading off Mason when she went to give her condolences," Giulia said offhandedly. _She_ had asked Sheila to get a reading off of Mason, with either Damon or Stefan in close enough proximity they could detect her reaction – that way ensuring it seemed accidental, and ensuring Sheila's continued independence from the brothers' plans. Sheila had managed to get inside Mason's head, briefly, but long enough that she had gotten something, and Stefan had taken the bait. He was now on his way to the well – "Caroline?!" Giulia blurted, as paused, gasped, and grabbed her, throwing her into a piggy-back, vamp-zooming through the trees. _Huh_ , Giulia reflected, _doesn't matter if she's wearing heels_. She wondered if Caroline's high-heels would smoke from friction-burn when they paused.

They stopped at the old well they used to play by when they were little. The woods had been their place, full of adventures and make-believe. She saw Bonnie, shockingly enough, and skinny Elena shouting down into the well, the cage lid for the first time ever lifted, the old padlock tossed on the old pine-needles at Elena's sandal-clad feet.

"Stefan!" she shouted.

"What's going on?" Caroline asked, as Giulia clambered off.

"Stefan's down there!" Elena half-shouted, half-whimpered, frantic. "We have to get him out!" Giulia went to the well, peering over the edge. It was a long way down, and she could just hear Stefan grunting in the dark.

"Stefan?!" she called.

"N-no, no, Caroline!" Elena latched on to Caroline's arm before she could slip a leg over the side of the well – no hesitation whatsoever. "It's filled with vervain!"

"Car, the chain," Giulia directed, swiftly unbuckling the ankle-ties on her heels. She was only wearing a plain black mini-dress, her hair plaited neatly in a Dutch-braid down her back, compared to the accessories and layers and lack of rock-climbing training the others had; as she clambered over the edge of the well, Caroline lowered the length of ancient chain. She left her car-keys on the wall of the well. "When you bring him up, go grab the icebox from my car at the swimming-hole. Watch out, though, people might see you."

"Got it," Caroline nodded solemnly. "Are you okay?"

"We really should go mountain-climbing," Giulia mused, glancing over her shoulder into the abyss, and Caroline chuckled softly. With her free hands, her bare feet, the aid of the chain and Caroline's strength, Giulia lowered herself down into the well, using the jagged edges of rock, places where the mortar had aged away, to climb down, using the chain at the more difficult parts, the temperature lowering with every foot she dropped, the light leaching away into the damp.

"Hurry! You're taking too long!" Elena called frantically.

"Elena, calm down," Caroline told her sternly, her voice echoing strangely off the damp walls. "You're not helping Giulia by hassling her. You'll only distract her and get her hurt. She'll get Stefan." Stefan had dropped a large flashlight, and it bobbed in the water, illuminating his burned appearance, head nodding in the water, as well as the long stalks of familiar bluish-purple flowering plant she grew in the little greenhouse on the side of her new garage. Stefan appeared unconscious, at least unresponsive, but he thankfully didn't look to be sinking; Giulia lowered herself using the chain into the water, managing to get him tied up.

"Haul him up, Car!" she called, and the chain rattled, and she guided Stefan's vervain-drenched body as far as she could before Caroline had hauled him, with stunning speed, out of sight. She glanced around in murky, watery light, at something wooden bobbing just on the periphery of the flashlight's glow. She took hold of it, surprised, and smiled as she lifted up something heavy. A small wooden box, clasped antique-style. Glancing up quickly, she used the brief distraction of Stefan being hauled out of the well by Caroline and Bonnie to open the box, smile at the moonstone glowing in the light of the flashlight, and stuffed it hastily into her bra, thankful she alone of the quartet could absolutely get away with doing so – she had the best rack and they all knew it. She fastened the box, glancing up at the top of the well and splashing around for show when she saw a little head poke over, and stilled when she heard something _hiss_ softly.

Thoughts of _Indiana Jones_ -type booby-traps flooded her mind, but she saw out of the corner of her eye a dark, sinuous shape. _Snakes_. _Oh_ , she thought, shrugging it off. She _wasn't_ Indiana Jones, and as long as she didn't associate snakes and water to _eels_ , she would be good. She tucked the box under her arm and waited for Caroline to lower the chain, glad she didn't toss it down; it might have hit her. But Caroline hauled her up and over the wall, and as soon as Giulia had touched her toes to the dusty pine-needles, she was little more than a shimmering champagne-coloured blur streaking away through the woods. Elena gave her a weird look as Giulia disentangled herself from the chain, setting the box down on the wall.

"Wow, the light of day does _not_ do him justice," Giulia grimaced, squatting down beside Stefan. Like him, she was soaked from the neck-down, and she was conscious of not touching any part of her lower-body near him.

"He needs blood!" Elena whimpered plaintively, gazing appalled at Stefan's burned face. It looked like a chemical-peel had gone awry. Absolutely awful, and with the remnant droplets of vervain only eating further into his skin, Stefan wasn't healing as effectively as he could do.

"Blood won't help much until we get the vervain off him," Giulia said, glancing at Bonnie. It was the first time they had truly seen each other since the carnival. She couldn't say she was sorry – she preferred the company of Bonnie's whacky grandmother, truth be told. Miss Sheila made _amazing_ Moscow Mules, had a large collection of Eddie South records and appreciated Giulia's real interest in witchcraft – Giulia was quickly becoming her best student, especially interested in Scandinavian witchcraft and the correlation with Viking pagan rituals. Plus, Sheila knew about the Curse of the Sun and Moon, and was more than willing to help Giulia postpone the inevitable, do all she could to protect those involved, alter the inevitable outcome. Some solutions had been so ridiculously simple, Giulia had wondered what Hogwarts would have been like if Sheila Bennett had been a tipsy professor of no-bullshit, common-sense magic. "Could you siphon the water away?"

"I – Maybe," Bonnie said uncertainly, glancing at Elena. At Elena's doe-eyed, beseeching look, clinging to Stefan's blistered, bloody hand, Giulia watched Bonnie. Something had happened between them, she thought she had seen Elena and Bonnie disappear off together, and wondered fleetingly what had happened; but she watched as Bonnie closed her eyes, focusing, breathing calmly as she started to say words in a powerful, odd language. The air started to shimmer around them – it wasn't the air, Giulia realised; droplets of water were rising from Stefan's clothing, sparkling in the air like the tiniest diamonds, the sun dappling the ground where they were. She seemed to direct the water back into the well; slowly, Giulia saw Stefan's wounds starting to heal. And no sooner had Giulia slammed the gate over the well than Caroline reappeared, holding a Gatorade bottle labelled ' _Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail_ '.

"I'm assuming this is for Stefan," Caroline said, giving Giulia an amused look as she uncapped the bottle. Caroline had the entire set of tiny Beatrix Potter books wrapped in protective white sleeves on her shelf at home, a Christening gift from her grandparents. "I had to steal some more ice for the rest of the stuff, the heat had totally melted through the freezer-packs in your car." Giulia shrugged, and Elena lifted Stefan's head into her lap for Caroline to carefully start pouring blood into Stefan's mouth.

"He's healing already," Caroline murmured, eyeing Stefan's exposed skin. He still wore his funeral suit. Giulia yawned, aware they'd both need to get their outfits dry-cleaned because the dust had now gathered on her dress, and hyper-aware of the heat now that she had been hauled back up from the cool, dim well, she was aware of the discomfort of having a cool bar of soap shoved in her bra-cup, the lingering unpleasantness of her damp clothes in the moist heat of the day, the dust clinging to her bare legs.

"Did you get it?" Stefan gasped, blinking his hazel eyes open, taking a minute to focus; he sipped at the blood, gradually taking bigger mouthfuls, until the bottle was empty. Bonnie lifted the box from the wall, undoing the clasp, and they all frowned when she opened it, revealing the contents – or lack thereof.

"All of that for nothing?" Elena said, looking annoyed. She shot Giulia a weird look. Giulia shrugged.

"Maybe Mason's already given it to Katherine," Caroline suggested. "I mean, we don't know if what Grams saw was the _last_ place Mason had the moonstone."

"Maybe," Bonnie said, shrugging. "We get what we get. And it's hard to put things into perspective." Giulia raised her eyebrows at Bonnie, who didn't see the incredulous smirk on her face.

They gathered up the box, and as soon as Stefan was able, they started walking toward the swimming-hole. They weren't the only ones who arrived wearing funereal clothing; but as quickly as possible, everyone had changed into their cutest swimsuits and summer gear, tanning or playing in the water, jumping from the tyre-swing, eating burgers or filling red plastic cups. Caroline gave the other girls a ride home to pick up their swimsuits, and while they were gone Giulia hid the moonstone in her car – it needed a clean-out, so it wasn't difficult to find a place to stash it, and she changed into a swimsuit, slathering on sunscreen. By the time Caroline had returned in her cutest bikini, bearing the platter of canapés she had compelled a cater-waiter to save for them, Giulia had a selection of beers, burgers and potato-chips for everyone – Elena and Bonnie included, as she felt the former needed a few quarter-pounders to put some meat on her alarmingly thin frame, and the latter was always at her moodiest when she was hungry.

As far as awkward meals went, it didn't even make Giulia's Top Twenty. With the music blaring, the splashes of the water, laughing as they watched classmates fail spectacularly on landings from the tyre-swing, reassuring Caroline over her Matt-drama, it wasn't too awful. But Giulia had spent the day drifting off, daydreaming about a certain sophisticated brunette with a hidden earthy Viking side. And she was glad of the jokes being bandied around by others, watching other people flirt and make fools of themselves, a water-fight starting spontaneously, ducking her head and laughing as she protected Caroline's little purple camera, as she thought smugly of the smooth little milky stone hidden in her car.

She had the moonstone.

Stefan and Damon would still be in search of it; that meant Katherine would be, too. She doubted Mason had already given her the stone. They'd know about it if he had.

Now she just had to convince Mason to either remain neutral or leave town for his own safety – from Katherine, more so even than from Damon. If he left town without giving Katherine the moonstone, there was every chance the others could be led to believe the moonstone was lost.

* * *

"Well, I'm here," Mason sighed, giving her a dark, suspicious look as he slammed his truck door shut. In sweat-shorts and a muscle-tee, Giulia took a swig of _Gatorate_ , not ashamed to admire the view while her body still tingled from being woken early to Elijah teasing her. _Tease_ being the key word, and she was now uncomfortable in her own skin, which felt too tight, when he'd refused to let her come – it was all part of the game, it was titillating, being sexually tortured, brought to the brink, knowing _he_ would know if she took matters into her own hands, as it were.

Uncomfortable as she was, it was titillating, the game. Refusing to give in to Elijah – because she tormented him just as mercilessly. In bed – or on the floor, against the wall, sprawled on the piano, in the shower, the new handmade dining-table that had finally arrived, on the island in the kitchen – Elijah _changed_ …opened up, became a different person – delighted, _playful_ , fierce, sweet… She got to see a side of him that was relaxed and open, _chatty_ , teasing – a flirt. It was a side of Elijah she doubted he really showed to anyone. It was rare, and precious, and she wondered if Mason could tell she was dying of unsatisfied lust.

"Are we doing this or what?" Mason asked gruffly.

"My, you're in a mood," Giulia observed. She smirked. "Haven't been getting any?"

"Any more than you," Mason said, giving her a look, and Giulia grinned, shrugging.

"Well, do you want to pout about it, or shall we run?" she asked.

"Let's run," Mason shrugged. "Figure you'll be too tired from trying to keep up to chew my ear off."

"You didn't have to come."

"As if I had a choice," Mason said, with a ghost of his old laidback, earnest grin. "Jenna's told me about you."

"You've been talking to Jenna?"

"Yeah, well, after figuring out that we both know about all this stuff, we really kinda caught up for the first time in a while," Mason sighed. He glanced at Giulia, hesitant, almost reassuring. "I mean – we've been friends since we were kids, but we've never been into each other." Giulia gave him a look, and his sombre expression broke into an easy, guilty-ish smile. "Okay, _I_ might've been interested. We were fifteen…whatever. But it's never been like that. Jenna's my friend. And I think Ric's a good guy."

"You're not just saying that because he's a vampire-hunter?" Giulia smiled, and he chuckled.

"Nah. Even ignoring that, he's probably the best guy she's ever dated," Mason chuckled. He sighed, shaking his head, scuffing his sneakers into the dusty, gravelly track. "But…I wish she didn't have to know anything about all this."

"Ignorance is bliss," Giulia said, and Mason nodded. "Come on, let's run."

The route she had created was one of her new ones – and it was _punishing_. She loved this particular one, through rugged, isolated terrain, through the hills, up waterfalls, across meadows full of high grasses, splashing across shallow rivers, dodging trees and boulders in the woods, miles and miles of punishing, varying terrain, natural obstacles – and they raced. She tried to keep up with a bona fide _werewolf_.

Emphasis on _tried_.

And Mason _loved_ taunting her about that, running backwards teasing her. He laughed richly when she shot him the finger. But she was determined to keep up, despite the pace he set, showing off, and he gradually stopped, falling into step with her, Giulia still pushing herself, but not doing anything dangerous trying to keep up with someone who had supernatural strength and endurance. But the run did what she had wanted – Mason was definitely, well, they were _both_ definitely on a high from endorphins when they finally slowed to a jog, eventually to a brisk walk, and Mason chuckled, smiling, when they reached the rocky waterfront of a lake, glittering in the harsh sun beating down on them.

"Gotta admit," Mason gasped, shaking his head as he swung his arms loosely, starting to stretch them, "that route was insane. How long was it?"

"About forty miles," Giulia said, working on her legs, gently stretching them to warm down. "Give or take a couple. I don't know, I haven't really measured it." But she had been here before, this was land she owned, and she showed Mason to the picnic-bench tucked under a few large trees overgrown with wild honeysuckle, magnolia blossoms perfuming the air as well as she pushed aside a tarpaulin covered with dirt and undergrowth to reveal the lid of a large icebox sunk into the ground.

"Forty miles," Mason gasped, unsnapping a huge _Gatorade_ bottle after stretching out his legs. She worked on her quads and hamstrings, her heartbeat thundering in her ears despite the cool-down to jogging and, glad she had put sunscreen on her ears, the back of her neck, the tip of her nose as the sun beat down, _drenched_ in sweat. He smiled at her. "I'm impressed."

"I like to challenge myself," Giulia said, and Mason chuckled. She panted, finally settling down on the picnic-bench to catch her breath. "What about you? Why do you like surfing, by the way? Mystic Falls isn't exactly a beach-town, how did you get into it?"

"My folks used to take me to Florida Keys every year," Mason grinned lazily. "Guess I've never really grown up from those summers when I was a teenager." Giulia smiled.

"Nobody here's judging you," she said. "Is that what you do in Florida, just surf all day?"

"I wish," Mason smiled. "Nah, I'm a certified scuba-instructor and I work at a surf-shop and a bar. Still gotta pay bills."

"Right. Especially when you party through your trust-fund before your twenty-second birthday," Giulia teased, and Mason chuckled, shrugging easily. "What's it like?"

"Being broke?"

Giulia laughed. "No. Your life in Florida…is it like you? Easy-going and earnest?" Mason gave her a smile that was almost shy.

"Parts of it, anyways," he sighed. "Some parts of my life are a little darker."

"You don't mean the full-moon, do you?" Giulia guessed. Mason glanced at her, eyes shadowing with suspicion. "Please set me straight if I'm veering into the _insulting_ territory with my questions, because I really don't want to offend you, I'm just curious… So, do werewolves gather in packs, like real wolves?"

"Straight into it, huh?" Mason smiled. He sighed, shrugging. "I mean, I guess, there are packs, and then there are people who just want to keep it to themselves, work through every full-moon and get on with their lives. Some people embrace it, there's a real deep thread of tradition going through some of the really old packs, especially the ones that root back to Natives. Some families pass on their heritage, warning about the curse, they respect it for what it is if it is triggered. Then there are radicals, you know, younger generations tired of being told what to do, they embrace it – make it something it's not, convinced their powers make them, I don't know, _godlike_. There are pack rivalries, of course, just like natural wolves – y'know, for territory, for pack-members. More in tune with the wolf even when they're men. But when push comes to shove, when threatened by an outsider, werewolves will always band together."

"But you – are you a lone wolf?"

"Me?" Mason sighed, staring out at the water, fiddling with his Gatorade bottle. "Me, I guess I'm nomadic, moving between different packs."

"You haven't met any packs you liked enough to stick with?"

"I liked the packs fine," Mason sighed. "Just some of the people in them I didn't." Giulia chuckled sadly. There was always one person in the clique you wished wasn't part of it. "Some of 'em were nasty. Always up for a fight. I don't like confrontation, I never have. Guess my old man's still yelling at me to think about the consequences of my actions. Most of the time I just can't be bothered, walk away."

"So…packs are hierarchical, like real wolf-packs? There are alphas and betas?"

"Some, I mean, some of the older ones are more relaxed, they've got unofficial leaders who earned the respect of the community, and once newcomers have earned their place, the pack would do anything for them, unless their actions threaten the collective. Then there are those radical packs, all younger generations – mostly guys. Too much testosterone and aggression, nasty, real bad guys, _everything_ is a fight," Mason said, sighing.

"And you don't like to fight."

"If it's worth it." They were both quiet for a few minutes, drinking their Gatorade, enjoying the gentle breeze.

"Were you already dating Katherine before you turned?" Giulia asked. Mason nodded.

"Yeah, we'd been dating about three months when I triggered the curse," he said quietly, sighing heavily. "Met her a few months before that on the beach." He got this smile on his face, and Giulia wrinkled her nose, knowing he was thinking about her in a bikini.

"Ugh. I hope she's more stacked than Elena, otherwise I can't think what's worth looking at her in a bikini," she said honestly, shaking her head.

"Hey, it's not all about _looks_ ," Mason chuckled.

"Yeah, okay, Mr Playgirl Centrefold!" Giulia scoffed, and Mason laughed. "She's _beguiling_ , I'm sure. That's how she got Stefan and Damon, back in 1864. She had them wrapped around her little finger, chasing after her, fighting each other for her. She couldn't even flash an ankle back then without being labelled a harlot. Although, that is an excellent word."

Mason shrugged. "She's five-hundred years old, I'm sure she has plenty of exes."

"Did you try and hide it from her what you were, after you triggered the curse?" Giulia asked, and Mason nodded. "But she figured it out?"

"She found me while I was in transition, the third time I changed," Mason said, sighing. "Transformation gets quicker over time, but it still takes hours…"

"How did she react?" Giulia asked curiously. "Did she play it as scared and concerned, or was she exultant? Did she finally reveal _her_ secret, and she promised the two of you would live happily ever after in the supernatural world?"

"She freaked out, at first," Mason frowned, "until I explained what was happening to me–"

"And she refused to leave you," Giulia guessed. "She stood by you, helped you through it, and afterward you learned she might've died if you'd bitten her. She stayed even at the risk of her own life to help you. She kept your trust. And then she told you about the curse. But she needed your help to find the moonstone."

"How do you know about that?" Mason asked.

"Tyler told Jeremy Gilbert, who told us," Giulia sighed. Too many people now knew about the moonstone; Tyler had learned it from Mason and told Jeremy, who had informed Stefan and Damon, Caroline, Elena too; even Liz had heard. Through Jeremy she was sure Ric and Jenna knew as well. And since Stefan and Damon had realised Katherine was probably the one who truly wanted the moonstone, using Mason to get it, they would become determined to find it for themselves, determined that Katherine would _not_ get what she wanted. The moonstone was the only thing staying Elijah's hand. The knowledge that the essential moonstone had been lost for five centuries with Katherine's disappearance was all that protected them from a slaughter. Even now word of a living doppelganger may have reached Klaus' ears – if what she had heard of him was true, he would stop at nothing to get what he wanted.

She was absolutely delighted she had obtained the moonstone. It still resided hidden in her car, but she wanted to give her car a full valet too much to keep it hidden there. She was going to hide it, though, keep it hidden from Elijah as long as possible to postpone the inevitable – and give her _time_. Time was a precious thing, especially to those who did not have an abundance of it. It always astounded her how impatient vampires could be – as if _their_ time was running out!

"Did Katherine tell you how she knew where the moonstone was hidden?" Giulia asked him, curious. She wondered whether Katherine had outlined her dealings with George Lockwood to Mason.

"She told me she found it a few centuries ago," Mason said, shrugging it off again. "It was too precious, so she hid it."

"She stole it five hundred years ago, the night she discovered she was supposed to be the doppelganger sacrifice in a ritual that would lift an ancient curse on one of the Original vampires," Giulia said quietly. When receiving pain, she preferred a lot of it all at once, rather than pouring lemon-juice on a paper-cut. "She turned instead. She fled. She took the moonstone knowing the curse could never be broken without it – or her, as a human."

"What're you talking about?"

"The curse Katherine wants to break, it isn't one that will give werewolves the power to turn whenever they want, or vampires to walk in the sun. It's a curse on an Original vampire," she said quietly. "The moonstone binds the curse. In order for it to be broken, the Original would have to sacrifice a doppelganger _and_ a vampire _and_ a werewolf. Elena's the doppelganger, obviously. I can appreciate the poetry Katherine must have seen in turning Caroline into a vampire. You? You're the werewolf."

Mason stared at her, eyes narrowed, dark with suspicion. But there was a brief flicker – doubt. It was one of the most powerful emotions, alongside love, hope and fear. She knew she wouldn't have to do much – either to convince Mason to step out of the way and remain neutral, or to switch sides. If she could convince Mason to leave town, and if werewolves were as rare as she believed, then she might have stolen precious moments to work on her plan some more while Elijah tried to source another for the sacrifice. Provided he learned the moonstone was in play after all, and she was determined he wouldn't learn she had it, until she _wanted_ him to know.

All she would have to worry about was preventing Tyler from triggering his curse; and she was sure there was some way Sheila Bennett might be able to help with that. Tyler was a teenaged idiot with anger issues but he was conscientious as much as any seventeen-year-old.

"It's interesting she went after you, though," Giulia said, eyeing Mason thoughtfully. "I suppose your brother was too high-profile. But Tyler… I mean, if I was her I would've come to town after Miranda and Grayson Gilbert died, pretending I was Elena's twin-sister. Elena's picture was in the newspapers, she could've claimed to see it there. Who would contradict that they could be twins? They _look_ exactly the same age. I'm sure she could've fooled Stefan and Damon if she'd really wanted, and she could have compelled John Gilbert to go along with the story – Isobel would have done what she was told out of fear. Katherine would have had her pick of people to turn into vampires. Gotten to Tyler that way. Gained Elena's trust… But she's far too dramatic to play the long-con. Too selfish and impatient. And now her lack of subtlety is going to cost her."

"What you're telling me is that my girlfriend – what, _triggered_ my curse so I'd become a werewolf, just so she can get the moonstone and send me to slaughter? Everyone knows about the Curse of the Sun and Moon, you're gonna try and convince me it's bogus?" Mason said incredulously. Giulia didn't rise to the bait, getting defensive or angry. She just sighed, fixing Mason with a look right in the eye.

"You know about compulsion, don't you?" she asked. She'd seen that flicker of doubt; he was smart enough to realise that feeling in his gut was telling him something for a reason. Katherine may be glorious and provocative – she was charming and coy, but with a sickeningly-sweet cunning to her, a slyness subtly underlying the magnetism that leaned toward psychopathy. She'd do anything to save her own neck. Giulia was determined none of the people she cared about were going to end up on the long list of Katherine's victims. Not _again_. Bluntly, she asked, "Was Jimmy on vervain?"

Mason stared at her, then glanced out at the water. After a moment, he said, "You think Katherine compelled Jimmy to attack me and trigger my curse?"

Giulia watched him. The tension in his shoulders, the stark expression on his face, so clearly trying _not_ to show a flicker of emotion. "This isn't the first time you've thought that."

"You've had pack-mates warn you away from her," she said softly, guessing. She wondered how deep-rooted the distrust of vampires was with werewolves; it was mixed with a deep disdain and prejudice when it came to witches.

"Vampires can't be trusted."

"That can be said of humans, werewolves, witches _and_ vampires," Giulia said impatiently. She sighed heavily. "You just had the misfortune of having caught the interest of the most selfish, duplicitous vampire there is."

For a very long time, Mason didn't say anything. Remained on the picnic-bench, coiled with a tension so palpable she could take a bite from it and taste his rage, his helplessness, his betrayal and sorrow. He barely moved, just watching the water, and Giulia sipped her _Gatorade_ , enjoying the heat, almost dozing by the time Mason sighed, finally glancing at her.

"She compelled Jimmy to attack me, so I'd trigger the curse," he said, in a voice simmering with pent-up rage, and a weary devastation that made her stomach hurt. "I killed my friend because of her. She's the reason I go through the transformation every month."

"Do you want to hit something?" Giulia asked quietly, surprising a strained laugh out of him, shaking his head. "If it makes you feel any better, she wasn't planning on making you go through the transformations for long." Mason was a means to an end. Just like Caroline. Playing with Elena was a bit of fun to keep Katherine entertained – and distract them. Katherine could do as she liked, getting away with preparing for the sacrifice because they were too distracted by the petty drama she had created with Stefan and Elena's relationship, now self-destructing; whether or not she had sanctioned it, Mason's attempt to get Stefan and Damon killed had provided another distraction while they had to do damage-control with Liz. They were actually doing her a favour, learning about the moonstone, trying to find it; when they had, there was little to stop her coming in and taking it.

"So the Curse of the Sun and Moon is a lie?" Mason said quietly. "It's all just…a lie."

"The legend of the Sun and Moon Curse was created as failsafe in case the moonstone was ever lost," Giulia said. "Insurance; I'd say the best way to make sure it's never lost for long is to have everyone fighting over it. Pitting vampires against werewolves for it. People would kill over it. That attracts attention. The curse is on one person. A very clever, very dangerous person Katherine has been running from for five-hundred years."

"And I should just believe you're not lying to me?" Mason said.

"I have every reason to tell you the truth," Giulia said honestly. "I'm trying to keep people alive – keep _Caroline_ alive. And Elena – and _you_." Mason sighed, looking back over the water again.

"Half-tempted to try and track this Original down and tell him where she is," Mason said quietly. Whatever struggle he had gone through, he had done so internally. He fiddled with the cap of his Gatorade bottle. "So a bunch of people have to die for this curse to be broken. You mentioned Elena and Caroline?" Giulia nodded. He sighed. "You know…I could almost handle thinking I wouldn't have to go through the transformations any more, if it weren't for thinking about them. How Liz would react – and Jenna. She's already lost her sister, her brother-in-law. Jeremy would lose his sister just like I just lost my brother."

Giulia's lips parted slightly. The way he had spoken… "Mason, do you want to die?"

He glanced at her, eyes shadowed and sad. "I just don't want to live as I am." He let out a big sigh, and after a few minutes, he said quietly, "But I guess I gotta… This was my fault. If I hadn't brought Kat into Jimmy's life, he'd still be alive… She could've picked anyone – she picked my _friend_. And he's dead because of me."

"It was an accident," Giulia said quietly. "You had no idea what was going on."

"No, but I should've trusted my gut," Mason said, squinting out over the water, fiddling with his bottle-cap. He glanced at Giulia. "What else has she done that I don't know about. You said she turned Caroline…"

Giulia told him, from the beginning – at least, this most recent chapter of the saga that was Katherine Pierce. The tomb. The vampires who tortured Stefan for information. Sending Isobel into town, using John Gilbert to kill all of the vampires – causing Richard Lockwood's death, Tyler's accident, attacking John Gilbert, turning Caroline. It all traced back to Katherine, even indirectly, when she wasn't actively in Mystic Falls pulling strings. It was the second time in less than a week she'd had to explain it all. Except Mason couldn't be compelled to forget; he had to stay out of things or leave town on his own. Whatever was going on in Mason's head, he kept it to himself, internalising any reactions.

"You didn't know about _any_ of this?" Giulia asked. Mason shook his head silently. He sighed, sitting back against the picnic-table.

"So, what do you suggest I do?" he asked, glancing at her. She raised her eyebrows.

"You're asking me?"

"You seem to have it all figured out," Mason said, shrugging. "You knew what you were doing when you asked me to meet you, told me all of this."

"If I were you…I'd leave town," Giulia said quietly. "Don't tell anyone where you're going, but let them know you'll be on the road…try and find some people who'll have your back – Katherine doesn't take betrayal lightly… Although, hopefully she can be dealt with before anyone else gets hurt." There was no sense in _planning_ to kill Katherine – she would always be ten steps ahead, Giulia felt. As Damon had said, _She's always up to something_. _That's the beauty of Katherine._

"You know what, it kinda sucks," Mason sighed. "Coming back here, being with Tyler, I don't know…it felt good. Just…listening to him, helping him…"

"I think you've been good for him," Giulia said. "You're intense but in a different way – he needs to learn how to control his aggression. Not be such a dick." Mason chuckled.

"I could've helped him with his temper," he said, smiling sweetly, "but I got nothing on him being a jerk. Sorry."

"That's okay," Giulia smiled. She sighed. "So…d'you wanna head back. You're giving me a piggy-back, by the way; I can't do another forty miles." Mason chuckled.

"Fine," he smirked. "I like to challenge myself." Giulia smiled. They tucked the empty Gatorade bottles back into the concealed icebox, and started walking the way Giulia led; there was a different, shorter route back into town that she enjoyed as a gentle warm-down after that forty-mile obstacle course.

Mason glanced at her. "If you want the moonstone, you know…you can have it."

"Oh." Giulia grimaced. "I already stole it."

* * *

 **A.N.** : Please review!


	16. Let Go

**A.N.** : Has anyone else realised the simple solution to the problem of Jeremy being trapped inside the tomb with Katherine was for Bonnie to incapacitate _Katherine_ so Jeremy could escape? I have also noticed the wardrobe department uses a lot of purple when introducing new baddies. Both Mason and Elijah wear purple shirts in their first couple of episodes. And damn, does it look good on them!

 **POUR YOURSELF A DRINK BEFORE YOU READ THIS!** You'll need it…

* * *

 **Dangerous Beauty**

 _16_

 _Let Go_

* * *

"…I'll never do anything to hurt you," a throaty voice whispered, earnestness dripping from her words, and Giulia shot Damon a smile, pleased.

"We never talk like this," Caroline's voice said softly. "And today meant _so much_ to me."

"For me, too," Liz sniffled happily.

"I know I can trust you," Caroline said softly, upset. "But you're never going to trust them…" Damon stepped out into the doorway of the cell, making Caroline jump. Liz glanced around; their eyes were damp, bright blue. Almost identical. Giulia leaned in the doorway, smiling.

"Ready to bust this joint, Liz?" Damon asked laconically, leaning down to zip up Liz's small suitcase.

"But – I… I haven't compelled my mom to forget," Caroline blurted anxiously.

"I know," Damon said flippantly, lifting the suitcase easily. "C'mon. We'll have a drink. Us Council members have some things to discuss."

"Wait, I don't underst— What's going on?" Caroline asked, glancing from Damon to Giulia.

"Decided it's best to keep Liz in the loop," Damon shrugged, and Giulia shot Liz and Caroline a wink behind his back. Caroline's entire face lifted, and Liz glanced from them to Caroline, relief etched in her features.

"What changed your mind?" Liz asked, eyeing Damon suspiciously.

"You did," Giulia said softly, gazing at Liz. Had things gone the other way, had Liz rejected Caroline, they would have compelled her to forget as planned; but Giulia knew her too well. There was no way Liz could see Caroline as she was now and not be awed by her daughter. Turning into a vampire had stripped the pettiness and insecurities from her, left in its place a fair-minded, confident badass who took command of difficult situations, protected her friends – hell, she had clobbered Mason when he'd apparently used Elena as a human-shield against her, had taken down the two sheriffs who had captured Stefan and Damon and been rough with Elena.

Liz's things were left by the front-door, ready for her departure. But in light of her _not_ being compelled, Giulia had been organising an inaugural dinner. The candles in the lanterns outside were all lit, music playing, and Stefan was stationed at her dad's beloved grill, Caroline set the table and Giulia brought out the loaded salad and sides, and they had a _working dinner_. They all knew about the Council, and even if only two of them were official members, Giulia was on the waiting-list and the actions of the Council were of absolute importance to Stefan and Caroline's continued safety. It was a blessed relief to talk to Liz as a person on the same page as the rest of them – well, in regards to her knowing the secret.

Her attitude towards a lot of things was very refreshing, and only cemented Giulia's belief she had done right by convincing Damon not to compel Liz to forget the details. Liz wanted to protect her daughter; but she had dedicated her life to protecting the town, as well. She wanted to ensure Caroline was safe from the town, and that the town was safe from _her_. Rather, from Damon. She asked Stefan point-blank if he felt his new regime of inoculating himself toward the effects of human-blood would work.

"I…I'm taking a thimbleful at a time, for now," Stefan said. "I've been working on handling it each time, I think Giulia's method may work. Introduce it as _part_ of my diet but not the high-point."

"And if you feel you're ever close to the edge, who is there you can turn to for help?" Liz asked; Giulia had told her about the Ripper, and obviously she didn't want a repeat of the Grove Hill murder.

"I have a friend, Lexi," Stefan said. "She's…been pulling me back to sobriety since 1864."

"Oh. Giulia mentioned her – the vampire Florence Nightingale," Liz said, and Stefan chuckled.

"Yup. That's her," he said.

"I'll give you her contact-details," Giulia said, eyeing Caroline as she bounced out of the house with a large ice-cream cake from _Dairy Queen_ – she had compelled the server to give _them_ the very last cake rather than the mom of five whose screaming brats absolutely did _not_ need the extra sugar. "Better you don't have to rely on any one of _us_ to narc on Stefan if he flings himself off the wagon."

"My thoughts exactly," Liz said, as Caroline set the cake down.

"Is it really that hot? It's already starting to melt," Caroline said thoughtfully, eyeing the cake.

"It is _ridiculous_ ," Giulia said, plucking the fabric of her dress away from her stomach. The backlash of having a great rack meant sweaty cleavage, and being frowned on by conservative Mystic Falls mommies for not wearing a bra.

"I don't even feel it anymore," Caroline sighed, shrugging. "At least I'll always look _composed_."

"Grace Kelly would be so proud," Giulia said drily, as Liz chuckled. Caroline dished up the cake, and Giulia enjoyed her wedge, smiling to herself as she reflected on Elijah's sweet-tooth. She'd never seen him consume blood, but no sweet-tasting thing was safe from him. At least he was an exceptional cook, and like Caroline didn't feel the heat to be uncomfortable using her oven to create any number of baked goods. She suspected he was bored; but he had his laptop, her records, and she had given him sketchbooks and coloured pencils to sketch designs for jewellery or eggs. He loved her pianos, had been working on that composition movement by movement, everything so thoughtful and meticulous. He was just waiting. But she had noted that he refused to include any of his friends in his plans. No Cara, no Jacques, no Ashlyn. None of the Manhattan crowd.

She probably still tasted of ice-cream when she returned home later that night, enveloped by the warmth of the night, the scent of magnolias on the gentle breeze, greeted by her new home by glowing amber warmth, and the scent of fresh baked goods, the gentle tinkle of the piano, the delicate lap of water from the lake, the panoramic wall of glass overlooking the lake open to the breeze as she padded to the sleek deck. He wasn't sat on one of her new deckchairs, but there was a towel thrown over the end of one of them, his watch and, strangely, one of her tiny inner-helix cartilage studs on the little table, glinting in the sun. She smiled as she glanced across the water, seeing a dark head bobbing in the water, flickering in and out of sight as the sun warped off the disturbed water. They had about two hours until sunset; she had left the party early to come and spend some time with Elijah, after being so busy the last few days.

Having the moonstone changed things.

Sooner or later Elijah would find out she had it. And with that realisation he could either compel or… _convince_ her to make it available for the ritual to go ahead.

She guessed it would be _sooner_ rather than later; from what she had guessed he had too much riding on this sacrifice going ahead. They had very little time together before things started gaining a momentum they had little hope of controlling. Ducking back into the cool, shady house, she pulled a serving-platter from one of her cupboards, loading it with gorgeous fat olives, local artisan salamis, roasted almonds tossed in olive-oil and rock-salt, a beautiful salty cheese, chilled grapes and fresh, warm figs from the tree outside by her garage, sliced and drizzled with local honey, some sliced bruschetta Elijah had made yesterday, lightly toasted under the grill in the oven, a pile of walnuts and a handful of tiny flavourful cherry-tomatoes. She pulled a bottle of sherry from the refrigerator where it had been chilling, putting it in the antique silver bucket full of ice-cubes, getting out a couple of glasses, and carried it all outside to the deck. She hid Elijah's towel, watching him swim closer.

She watched as Elijah's features started to come into focus, and raised an eyebrow, shamelessly checking him out as he climbed, completely naked but for his subtle daylight-ring, out of the water.

"My towel seems to have walked off," he said casually, his eyes travelling the length of her body from tousled hair to her shimmering orange-pedicured toes.

"Oh, dear," Giulia tutted, smirking. "What _ever_ shall you do?" Traipsing over, dripping, glistening in the early-evening sun, hair slicked back, tattoo and all those delicious lickable scars on show, Giulia got a little side-tracked just watching the way his body moved, as he smiled gently, taking her face in his hands, brushing his lips tenderly against hers, stroking his thumbs over her jaw, down her throat, across her collarbones as his pinkie-fingers slipped deftly under the tiny halter T-back straps of the white-embroidered red sundress she had put on after dunking herself in the swimming-hole earlier. She shivered as the fabric billowed to her ankles, and they both chuckled, smiling as they kissed, as Elijah tutted.

"Look at that," he said softly, his dark, playful eyes sweeping over her now entirely naked body. She had stripped off her two-piece after going swimming, tying it to her car-aerial to dry out while she shared a beer with Caroline. "It seems to be catching."

"There must be some nefarious voodoo in the air," Giulia said drily, and Elijah chuckled softly; she stepped out of her dress, which he used to blot the water from his body, giving her a smirk. She opened the bottle of pale sherry with a delicious _pop_ and poured them both a glass; he looped his arms around her waist from behind, gently kissing her neck, before gently pulling her onto the deckchair, a tangle of legs and sun-seared skin.

There were times when a bottle of chilled sherry defined perfection. Draped between Elijah's legs on her back, her head against his chest with his fingers sifting through her hair, idly watching the water, sharing a platter of little finger-foods, dozing butt-naked against Elijah's chest as he traced her nipple-piercing with his pinkie-fingernail, tenderly cupping and massaging her breasts, soaking up the sun and stroking a hand up and down his thigh, it was perfect. Naked sunbathing, the tang of olives and salt from almonds and salami, the sweetness of the honey and fruit, the tart, sweet, dry sherry was absolutely delightful.

"You'll burn," Elijah warned in a whisper, tenderly pulling on her earlobe with his fingertips, making her shiver.

"Mm," she said, drugged by the sun's warmth, too relaxed in the cradle of Elijah's body to move.

"At the very least, your front will not match your back," Elijah murmured, and Giulia hummed contentedly. He was right about that; Caroline would give her no end of shtick for an uneven tan. So, she turned over, breasts pressing against Elijah's stomach as she lazily hugged his torso, cheek pressed to his chest. She heard his soft chuckle, the steady beat of a huge heart long afraid to feel, his breath tickled against her bare back as he sighed heavily. She felt his fingers delicately trace across her back, gathering up her hair, brushing it away from her face, tenderly brushing his thumb against her arm.

"Giulia," Elijah whispered, and she heard the tone in his voice. She blinked, coming into focus, drawn to the here-and-now, the glint of drying water pooled on the deck, her red sundress drying out on the other deckchair, and she rested her chin on his chest, gazing up at him inquisitively. Something sparkled between his fingers as he offered it to her; the tiny stud for her most recent inner-helix piercing. She had taken all her piercings out to clean them, and had left them out today for the funeral, conscious of how inappropriate Carol felt about multiple ear-piercings were.

"What's this?" she asked, smiling, as she reached up to take it.

"I took the liberty of having it…spelled," Elijah said softly, as she brushed a fingertip over her ear, focusing as she threaded the tiny implant-grade titanium labret stud through her cartilage. Kelly's friend in Richmond who owned the piercing-parlour had won awards, one of the best in the state, and Giulia was a convert. He had done her nipple-piercing for her, chuckling at the face she had pulled, distracting her with a book full of photographs of other body-piercings. She'd flipped to the naughty ones. Speaking of naughty, Giulia glanced up at Elijah as she twisted the back into place, raising an eyebrow.

"Spelled with what?" she asked teasingly, and Elijah's eyes were lambent as he gazed down at her.

"To…make you a little more…durable," he said, and she narrowed her eyes, filled with amusement; she was tempted to tease him for _blushing_.

"And what might I need to be more _durable_ for, lovely?" she asked, dipping her lips to press a kiss to his chest. Elijah cleared his throat, tracing his fingers up and down her back idly as she fiddled with her labret stud. It felt alien for a few moments, her body readjusting to it being there, but she smirked when he caught her eye.

"I have a few ideas," he said softly, and Giulia grinned mischievously, sliding up his body so she had her arms draped around his shoulders, her breasts pressed against his chest, hooking one knee over his hip, and without a word, his body reacted, twisting his hips ever so slightly, a hand on her ass, groaning softly as a pained look flickered across his face, and he tangled his fingers through her hair to cup her head and draw her closer, brushing a kiss against her lips, her toes curling as he teased his erection ever so lightly between her legs.

She shivered, swallowing, as he swiftly caught her other knee over his wrist, pulling her leg up to straddle his lap, erection searing her delicate skin as she rolled her hips against him almost unconsciously; he drew her face into his hands, tenderly, fiercely kissing her, one hand tangled in her hair, the other brushing down her throat, the backs of his fingers drumming against her piercing, pinching lightly and twisting, before he gathered her up in his arms, planting his feet firmly on the deck, dipping his head to nip and suck her the way he knew got right to her marrow, shivering and clenching, biting her lip and swallowing her gasps as she rolled her hips, slick and hot and aching for the searing length pressing against her, taunting her. She spread her knees wider, grinding against his erection, getting him wet, as he continued to lave her breasts, licking, suckling, nibbling, gently massaging as she pressed her palms against his shoulders, gently pushing him away, wanting him to stop, to watch her as she drew him into her. She wanted to watch _him_ as he entered her.

Panting, he rested back against the chair, stomach-muscles corded with strain, hands clasped at the tops of her thighs, thumbs brushing the sensitive skin at the joint, his eyes glued to her face. She dipped her head to brush delicate kisses to his lips, nuzzling his nose, bracing one hand on his shoulder as she traced a finger along his wrist, placing a hand over the fingers he had splayed across her ass, body shivering, her toes curling, eyes on each other as she rolled her hips one more time, her entire body coming alive as he met her, the briefest tug of resistance giving way to exquisite perfection.

 _Too much_ , she thought, lips parting as he filled her, his hips rising to meet hers with a strained groan.

It was too much, too exquisite…too _irreplaceable_.

The swift glide of her hips met his thrusts as she linked an arm around his neck, pressing searing kisses to his lips as his hands splayed on her hips, fingertips going white with pressure as they writhed, gasping and Elijah gathered her up in his arms, taking control; she raked her fingernails across his shoulder, up his back as he thrust harder, making her moan, pressing his forehead to hers as he twisted his hips to meet hers, making her gasp at the exquisite sensations assaulting her body, tiny waves building into a fierce storm, remembering everything they had learned about each other, to fight, and to last, to build things to an unbearable crescendo. She bit into his scarred collarbone to muffle her scream as the world shattered, listening to the pained grunt and the following sigh of pure male satisfaction as she shuddered in his arms.

Revelling in their mingled heat, she sighed, gently rolling her hips to elicit a tiny moan from Elijah, and licked her lips, bending to give him a searing kiss under his jaw.

"So…exactly how… _durable_ does this spell make me?" Giulia panted, a little while later, and Elijah's eyes flew to her face, the peaceful look on his face replaced by one of intensity that made her nipples throb, biting her lip. She smiled, leaning down to lick and then nip one of his nipples, tugging with her teeth, raking her fingernails lightly over his stomach, leaving a stinging trail of little bites softened by tiny kisses up to his lips, tongue delving, and he chuckled deep in his chest, gathering her up in his arms.

There was no going back.

The sofa, their favourite place, she found herself flung down onto, bouncing once before Elijah had joined her, her laugh caught in her throat as he wrapped one leg around his waist, draping the other over the back of the sofa, and she bit her lip, stifling a gasp as they both watched him feed himself into her. She gripped the sofa-cushion, wriggling, spreading her thighs wider as he started to move his hips, slow, forceful, measured thrusts, leveraged over her on arms coiled with muscle, and she propped herself up on her elbows, leaning up to give him hot, wet kisses, her entire body shivering with overstimulation, she gripped him with one hand, digging in her nails, biting his lip before her head lolled, his lips leaving a stinging trail of kisses from earlobe to breast, swirling his tongue around her nipple, tugging on her piercing with his teeth, still thrusting between her thighs, one shaky hand moving to grip her thigh and keep the leg draped over the sofa wide, adjusting his hips for better access, a deeper thrust, making them both gasp, his fingers trailing between them to touch her, gently, teasing, a contrast to the unforgiving thrusting between her legs that was sending her mind completely blank of everything but that sensation.

More, she just knew she wanted _more_. And _there_ , as he went up on his knees, adjusting her hips to hit _that spot_ he had found so easily so many times before with only his fingers – now, she keened, biting her lip to keep from begging, or worse, whimpering, as he slowed his pace, savouring every drawn-out thrust, pumping deep within her once, twice, three times before withdrawing in an achingly teasing movement that left her gasping and writhing, fingernails biting into his arm, kissing and nipping and biting at his collarbones, his neck, entire body shuddering, gasping, her muscles clenching almost painfully to keep him where she desperately wanted him, _needed_ him, as he pulled out almost to the very tip. Mind and body were in perfect agreement, Elijah needed to stay _there_ , that was where he was meant to be. She spurred him on, arms wrapped around his torso, one hand pushed through his dark hair, pulling him down for a fierce kiss, shuddering as he pushed deep into her again, powerfully, almost _lazily_ , savouring every sensation as her muscles clamped down on him, making her cry out at the intensity, and she saw and narrowed her eyes at the smug little smile that flitted across his strained features at the sound; her lips parted, eyes locked on each other as he pumped deeper into her, once, twice, that third wrecking time that made her toes curl, made her feel it to the marrow.

The tiniest, gentlest smile appeared on his lips as she panted, clinging to him, to the edge, refusing to fling herself over it. _Not yet_. Too much. Too irreplaceable – _unrepeatable_.

"Let go," he whispered, and she might have laughed at the irony if she wasn't so devastated by the onslaught of lust and emotion, her body completely… _alive_. She managed to shake her head, defiant – and scared…this couldn't be the last time. That gentle smile turned into a delicious smirk, a naughty grin that promised this was only the beginning, wicked and daring her to keep up. It was the same look she got when that barrier had finally been pulled down – the one that told her this was going to be a _long_ night of them both learning stunning secrets about themselves.

And suddenly, he was gone. Leaving her shocked, confused, her body _crying_ , aching for him, cramping almost painfully at her emptiness. She blinked, glancing around dazedly, and saw a hand offered to her. He was helping her up off the sofa, like a gentleman. She blinked, the thought utterly absurd as she unhooked her leg from the back of the sofa, eyes widening as she realised she couldn't _walk_ on legs so unsteady, but she made it to the steps up to the kitchen before she found herself on her back, Elijah lying between her thighs, _feasting_. Not filling her – building her up to an inferno the way only he had learned how, making her cry out and whimper, almost in pain at how empty she was, digging her heels into the cool floor as she writhed, fingers biting into his scalp as she pulled his hair, gritting her teeth as she tried to fight him preventing her from coming. He always did this, she thought viciously, her hips writhing, even as he used his strength, one forearm pressed across her abdomen, pinning her to the granite that enlivened her skin with its iciness, one hand sneaking up to flick and tease her nipples as she whimpered, his fingers teasing her. Always did this – until _he_ couldn't take it. And she held out for that tipping-point, drenched in her own lust, the agony of sexual torture, drenched and shuddering, completely out of control – she let out a rich laugh when he reached the breaking-point, although this time it wasn't simply her turn to go down on him and torture him – this time, she was wrenched to her feet, his hands splayed on her ass to lift her up, crying out as he sought her lips for a kiss and thrust deep into her in one swift, merciless move, his strength pinning her to his hips, hands splayed across her ass; she locked her ankles behind his back, clung on to his shoulders, and groaned as he used her body to leverage quick, deep thrusts, hot and slick and wet, suspended in mid-air with nothing but that sensation, until she realised they were on the gallery landing on the stairs, and he had her backed into the corner, letting her slide down his body long enough to stand on tiptoe, kissing him back fiercely as he pounded into her, an arm around her shoulders, giving her no escape from his deep, possessive kisses that matched each thrust of his hips, forcing her to her tiptoes trying to escape such devouring sensation.

This was new. This shared ferocity, limitless – they had slipped over that final barrier, tender and intimate, natural. Now there was nothing to stop them. And she relished in it, her body singing as he wound his arms around her, thrusting powerfully and making them both moan, almost shouting, backed into the corner, the walls propping her up as her legs shook, on her tiptoes, wrapped up in him, his kiss, pulling his hair and scratching his back as he thrust into her mercilessly, forgetting themselves, forgetting who they were, lost to everything but the feeling of him inside her. _Finally_ , she thought. They were finally here. She cried out, clinging to the wall, to him, feeling her legs about to go from under her – in a second, she was whisked away, gasping with relief as she reached over the bed to climb on – choking on a moan as he grabbed her hips from behind and thrust into her.

"Elijah!" she gasped, and grinned breathlessly, as one hand splayed across her stomach, finger dipping to find her clit, his other hand clasping hers affectionately as they met at her breasts; she covered his as he cupped her breast, thumb teasing her piercing, and she pressed her other palm to the mattress, using the bed for support as he thrust into her, the movement a powerful, downward thrust finding that spot that made her shudder uncontrollably and lose consciousness of everything else. She reached between them, fondling him, making him groan, his tight balls sensitive. She grinned, biting her lip. Then he withdrew, her knees instantly weak, and she gave a cruel tug that made him groan and retaliate, slapping her ass so it stung and she moaned, rolling her hips, and he clambered onto the bed, hoisting her up by the waist. He manoeuvred her back against him on their knees, supporting her as he pushed into her, digging his forehead into her shoulder as she took his hands to cup her breasts, using her own to touch herself and caress him between them as he thrust at a gentle, deceiving pace. She felt his teeth nip her shoulder, never drawing blood, and he released one breast only to thread his fingers through her hair, flipping it over one shoulder, and she glanced up, gasping as she watched them in her dressing-table mirror.

" _Oh_ ," she whispered, catching his eye in the mirror as he altered his pace, slow and delicious, she pressed back against him, moaning, leaning around to kiss and bite his jaw, giving him a searing kiss as he massaged her breasts, one hand sneaking down to join her, turning back to the mirror to watch, a soft smile on her face, flushed and covered in sweat but alive, delighted, he looked absolutely edible, hair pushed back, muscles knotted, those soft hollows on his ass defined with each gentle stroke deep inside her, his expression so gentle and…heart-breaking. Their eyes roved over each other in the mirror, memorising everything. She tilted her head, curious what he saw, before she shivered, his breath dancing across her ear as he whispered, " _Let_ _go_."

He always did. She glanced over her shoulder, eyes locking with his, and managed to pant a soft, "Not without you," the way _she_ always did. He took her face in his hand, tilting her head back for a kiss, and they let go. Together.

Hours later, dozing blissfully against Elijah's side in the cool darkness of their bedroom, she sighed to herself, feeling his fingertips tracing her vertebrae, and she smiled and yawned gently, stretching out. She wasn't sure whether the spell he had had put on her earring had done it all, but either he was used to holding back or she was stronger than they knew; and he was _delicious_. That same fire that burst into life whenever she took the time to set it ablaze, threatening to burn out of control, still smouldered in him, she could sense it in his relaxed smile, the physical affectionateness she experienced, delighted in, whenever he had lowered his emotional walls to be vulnerable, sweet and playful, earnest and devastatingly sexy. He gathered her head in the crook of his elbow, lifting it, drawing her up his body to press a kiss against her lips.

He gave her the sweetest, saddest look, eyes searching her face, and she was struck, swallowing nervously, not breaking eye-contact, understanding that he had realised what she had known before. That this…this had marked the end of one part of their relationship…indicated its transition into something new, something dangerous and volatile and something neither of them would have control over.

This was goodbye. To what they had been. The relationship they had had. What they might have had, if not for the curse. Giulia didn't know whether the sacrifice had simply provided a trigger to hasten the inevitable. Would they have gotten to this point? There was a certain immediacy, an intimacy they had both broken through high walls to experience together; it may have taken decades for Elijah to open up the way he had the last couple of weeks due to sheer proximity, necessity. Her refusal to not let him maintain that immaculate façade.

She wasn't willing to waste her own time, limited as she knew it was, by indulging the thousand-year-old vampire with his need to keep emotionally buttoned up.

But she was in danger, too, of that demand for intimacy backfiring.

Maybe it was the girls forcing her to watch too many chick-flicks at their slumber-parties. Too much awareness of _romance_ and mush in pop-culture, listening to Caroline talking about her failed relationship with Matt, but Giulia thought…

She had never been in love. Tyler was the childhood friend she had discovered sex with. Had enjoyed goofing off with, loved spending time with him when he wasn't being dickish. He had had that sweeter side he never showed anyone… But love? No.

The only real-world relationships she had to observe, to try to figure out, were Stelena. Jennaric – the name made her snicker to herself, amused. Caroline's frequent, short-term obsessions, and her more recent earnest, sweet attempt with Matt. Carol and Richard Lockwood, her proximity to Tyler giving her a different insight than most people saw. Grayson and Miranda's honest, casual intimacy; and her own father, grieving for her dead mother until the day he died.

Given all that, it wasn't surprising she was…well, _confused_.

Unsettled, was probably the best word to describe it. She had no idea what she was feeling – her entire body was a mess, completely out of her own control, responding to simple _thoughts_ about Elijah – and those were frequent, distracting her. It wasn't even thinking about him naked, she liked to pretend she wasn't becoming addicted to sexual intimacy with him, but who was she kidding? She was a closet nymphomaniac – a monogamous one, but a lover of orgasms and the thrill of sexual foreplay nonetheless. She just liked thinking about him. What they were doing. _The_ _game_. Thinking about what he had planned, guessing his moves and countermoves, adjusting her own tactics to take into account what she guessed he was up to, keeping twelve steps ahead because she knew he was working at ten.

She could justify to herself that she wasn't, strictly speaking, daydreaming about Elijah. She was zoning out worrying about the very-real danger of the looming sacrifice, the enigmatic Klaus, titillated by the mental challenge it all provided her with, combined with her own machinations against the Council, working on her college dissertations, her personal research consolidating all the intel she had acquired about vampires, the Originals, the curse, planning her road-trip with Caroline (final GPAs-dependent) and designing the refurbishment of her dad and uncle's vintage teardrop trailer – the physical aspects of actually _building_ it as well, putting in the hours on top of her school work, cleaning up after the boys, playing _the game_ with Elijah.

Giulia felt she could be forgiven, at seventeen, with only pop-culture and her father's deep mourning of his long-departed wife as an example, to not understand what her body and her mind were telling her.

She knew she was in _trouble_. That was all. But that word was just too vague and not delicious enough to describe what she was feeling. The rawness, the gentle intimacy, her excitement, the intensity of her sexual fascination with Elijah, their emotional closeness, how relaxed she was at the same time frazzled and delighted, shivering with terror at the intensity of the molten feelings in the pit of her stomach, unable to _wait_ to climb out of bed every morning because she had another day with him. Simple conversations stuck with her, she enjoyed cooking dinner he didn't need to eat together, she had learned of his secret _Doctor Who_ obsession, she listened to him playing the piano for hours out of the corner of her ear while she worked. He didn't interfere with her schoolwork or with her projects, but her knowledge of his nearness teased at the back of her mind.

It was an uncomfortable thought, pondering exactly what she was feeling, because she didn't _know_. Couldn't talk to anyone about it. It was too strange. Their relationship itself was not _normal_. How could anyone have a sage word to say about it?

He was a thousand-year-old Viking vampire seeped in mystery and tragedy, ruthless and subtly arrogant in an utterly charming way. She was a slightly hyperactive seventeen-year-old college student who drank too much, took unnecessary risks, suffered from insomnia, was smarter than was good for her and was in the process of breaking up with her _besties_ , incapable of severing emotional ties with the vampire who had killed her dad, and kept way too many secrets.

How the hell did they build a healthy relationship on _that_?

And…was she…in _love_?

She gazed down at Elijah's sombre face, pushing her fingers through his glossy dark hair, and she swallowed, feeling that writhing, clenching feeling in her stomach again, the one she had felt too many times not to pay attention to. Why did people say love could make the heart swell three sizes too big? It felt more like her small-intestines. It felt like bourbon and molten lava churning in there, searing, painful and exquisite, dulling some senses and sharpening others, warming her from the inside out, numbing her toes and making her head funny.

He wrapped his arms around her torso, hugging her closer as she leaned in to give him a searing kiss she feared told him far too much. Told him everything she didn't know how to say.

They kissed gently, intimately, just touching each other ever so delicately, laid on their sides facing each other on the bed, the super-soft 900 thread-count Egyptian cotton bedding just bearable on her heated, hypersensitive skin as Elijah made tiny circles with his pinkie-finger, and she licked her lips, eyes sliding closed, writhing subtly as he flicked his tongue over her nipple, while she gently cupped and tugged and stroked at him, panting. He brought her to orgasm one more time that night, sending her into a deep, restful sleep, body sated but mind threatening to start whirring again far too soon.

She had tonight, though; she would enjoy being in Elijah's arms tonight. After tonight, every moment she snatched with him was hers for the taking. Theirs to steal, to savour. Rare and precious, endangered.

* * *

 **A.N.** : I really am enjoying writing Giulijah – and I'm enjoying planning the trips inside Elijah's mind Giulia will take…

I'm going to be spending nine weeks travelling Bangkok, Sydney, New Zealand and Fiji, then over to LA, up to San Francisco to see friends, over to D.C. and then up to New Hampshire, then home from Boston. Good news, though, I may be taking my iPad with Word on it, and I will be on a lot of long flights!


	17. Kat-Fight

**A.N.** : I hope you are all suitably rehydrated, I don't want anyone going to the doctor on account of Giulijah smut.

It's what you've all been waiting for...

* * *

 **Dangerous Beauty**

 _17_

 _Kat-Fight_

* * *

She yawned, pushing the gym door open, a wave of heat hitting her like a freighter as she adjusted the strap of her gym-bag, chewing on the cap of her water-bottle as she rummaged around for her car-keys. Energised, bright-eyed and wide-awake from an intense workout with Ric and Jeremy, whom he was showing the ropes, followed by a session in the steam-room, there was a spring in her step. She had blow-dried her hair and pulled it up into a ponytail, not bothering with makeup, allowing the warmth of the late-evening sun to caress her bare legs and arms. She was _happy_ in the sunshine, the heat – couldn't imagine her life without it, wondered how she had survived through the winter. She hadn't felt this good in _ages_. She was high on endorphins, post-workout, anticipating a meal Elijah had promised to prepare for them, sunglasses on, freshly showered, the birds chirping in the blossoming trees as she padded across the quiet parking-lot to her car. She had scrolled the ancient windows down, had fought the urge to swear when she realised the winder had broken, her passenger-side window now stuck fully open; she had valeted her car this morning after doing some chores in the house, working on the engine, and sighed, realising she might have to cave and let Stefan and Damon work on her _Beetle_ to get it into road-tripping shape.

Caroline had been very intuitive about her dad's opinion on their road-trip. He was all game for them going, thinking it would be a wonderful life-experience for them both, provided their GPAs were above-exceptional, they provided an itinerary of camp-sites, motels and places they might likely be in the vicinity of so Sheriff Forbes could call in favours and check up on them remotely, if they were having too much fun to remember to charge their phones. He was dubious but assured that it was _Giulia_ and not Caroline rebuilding the trailer; but he was dead-set on examining every inch of her car and the trailer itself before he let them cross county lines. He didn't know Caroline was a vampire; Liz was dead set against him finding out, knowing more than they would about her ex-husband's view on vampires. But Caroline's new abilities had certainly made it easier to convince Liz they could do this on their own. They were planning for Liz to meet up with them for a week, somewhere they could do the kinds of stuff she'd like – long hikes, maybe horseback riding, mountain-climbing. Giulia was thinking Wyoming.

She had been chatting with Ric and Jeremy about the ongoing plans she was formalising with Caroline for their trip, bits and pieces added as they got flurries of inspiration from magazines or, like Giulia, from a conversation with Cara about a vintage festival she attended every summer and, friends with the organiser since the 1910s she had offered to get Giulia tickets if they wanted to meet her, Cara and possibly Ashlyn, who had been talking to Jeremy about the six-week course for high-school students at the New York Academy of Art she had been applying to.

"I think it's a great idea," Ric grinned, pausing to take a swig from his water-bottle. "Sixteen years old, spending six weeks in New York city all by yourself?"

"Just don't stress that point when you're convincing Jenna to let me go," Jeremy chuckled. "I really wanna do it, and I've got money saved up to cover the admin fee and accommodation."

"Do you know what classes you'll take?"

"I've had a look at the course catalogue, there's a bunch I'm really excited to apply for, but I'm guessing it's the luck of the draw with what you get after you've made your choices," Jeremy said excitedly, a gleam in his eyes Giulia couldn't remember seeing since before his parents died. He used to get the same look whenever his dad surprised him with tickets to a Major League Baseball game, or going to the lake-house for the summer, or the cute girl he had a crush on asking him to the dance. His freshman year seemed like a very long time ago, even though it had only been _last_ year. "There are some portraiture classes, and this one design class I'm really interested in, one with model-building and stop-motion photography and another one that focuses on special-effects for TV and movies."

"Cool!" Giulia grinned. "You'd be _so_ good working on a Peter Jackson movie. You're weird and macabre. Maybe a Tim Burton, or a Stephen King."

"Uh-uh, no Stephen King," Ric said, shivering.

"You hunt vampires and Stephen King freaks you out?" Giulia grinned, teasing.

"Haven't you watched _The Shining_?"

"Yes. It soothes me," Giulia said honestly. Ric blinked.

"That does _not_ shock me as much as it should," he said.

"She's practically living in her own Overlook Hotel," Jeremy remarked, glancing at Giulia as he adjusted the weight of the equipment he was working on.

"Well, that's true," Ric sighed, chugging his drink.

She smiled, reflecting on the conversation with Jeremy and Ric, glad she had managed to spend some time with them. Despite it being spring break, she was no less busy, and she had been spending fewer evenings out of the house, to run into Jeremy or Ric at The Grill – either separately, or sharing a meal with Jenna and Elena. With Ric, Jenna was building a new family for Elena and Jeremy, even if she didn't realise it. Giulia got the feeling Grayson Gilbert would have liked Ric – certainly he was the best guy Jenna had ever dated, and Miranda would have liked him simply for not being Logan Scumfell, for being down-to-earth, tough and kind. The deep maternal instinct in Miranda would probably have extended to lost Ric, especially had she learned of his wife's fate.

She dumped her gym-bag into the trunk of her car, finding it weird how clean it was in there, and frowned slightly, the fine hairs at the back of her neck rising with awareness as she shut the door. She jangled her keys, yawning, and sidled around to the driver's door.

"Hey," a soft voice said, familiar and yet… _not_. Just a fraction of an octave too low; it struck her as incongruous, the low, sexy, throaty voice, so familiar and yet in that single syllable, so alien. _Well, well_ … She glanced around, finding _Elena_ standing under the swaying crepe myrtle already in full blossom. Appearance-wise, she had tried. A demure little tuck of her chin toward her chest trying to offset the beautifully curled chestnut hair, but it seemed she couldn't resist the thick, full lashes, the skin-tight black jeans and gleaming black leather belt, the _accessories_.

"Hello, Katherine," she said casually, as if they had met before. As if she didn't know Katherine was a five-centuries-old vampire whore intent on massacring her friends simply to barter for a freedom her behaviour would never earn for her. She raised a perfectly groomed eyebrow, her expression shifting instantaneously into something different, something smug, predatory, sly.

"You really _are_ the smart one," she sighed, smirking, as she popped a hip, leaning against the crepe myrtle. Giulia pulled a face.

"Because I didn't fall for the charade?" Giulia said. She was the smart one for a myriad of reasons, not the least her powers of observation. "You couldn't be less obvious about it."

"What gave me away?" Katherine smirked unconcernedly.

"Where do I start?" Giulia sighed, making a point to eye her slowly, frowning. She raised her eyebrows at Katherine's cleavage. "Firstly, you're in small-town Virginia, you're not a Kardashian – lose the five-extra-cups-guaranteed _Victoria's Secret_ push-up bra. Elena wears flared jeans, absolutely _no_ accessories, so hide _that_ on your ankle," she said, tucking a fingertip delicately under the lapis stone resting around Katherine's slender throat. She eyed Katherine's awesome ankle-boots, way too chic and edgy for Elena to ever pull off. She gave Katherine a disapproving look. "Converses, or ballet-flats with a strap that ties around the ankle. Soft knees, turned in; on the tips of your toes as if you're about to start running. She always wears the vervain necklace Stefan gave her." She placed her hands on Katherine's slim shoulders, pressing gently to curl them in. "Shoulders turned down and in, you're a non-confrontational, demure little darling; look up through your eyelashes with just the perfect mixture of gentle earnestness and self-righteous, bitchy indignation. While you're at it–" She scoffed at Katherine's face, the exquisitely blended crème-contouring, the subtlest application of blush perfectly matched to her rich olive skin, the tinted lipstick just a shade duskier and rosier than her natural lip-colour with a shimmer of gloss, the false lashes masterfully blended with her own with lashings of expensive mascara, perfectly smoked-out eyeliner. "Wipe that shit off your face. Tinted moisturiser, a touch of crème blush on one of her can-be-bothered days, chap-stick, maybe the dark-chocolate cherry Palmer's lip-balm if you really want to get crazy, fawn-coloured eyeshadows with the subtlest hint of shimmer, maybe a soft cocoa colour to smudge out the lash-line, and comb but don't fill your brows, a few light coats of brown mascara," she said, giving Katherine a vicious grin, "all _drugstore_ cosmetics." Katherine narrowed her eyes, looking horrified at the very idea. "Heat-protective spray on your hair; straight-iron it to _death_. _No_ perfume. Stick to natural-tones for clothing – purples, blues, navies, olive; brown-leather bombers, no belts. Elena's mom always made her wear a thermal camisole under her tops. She did have this really cute orangey-red peasant-style blouse that worked gloriously with her colouring, but it died a _death_ after she started dating Stefan and stopped bothering."

Giulia flicked her ponytail over her shoulder, channelling her inner Caroline Forbes. "And remember, she's a small-town girl known to be demure and self-sacrificing to the point she believes her own press. She's a heightened sense of her own mortality and wants to protect everyone, and _thinks_ she has any power to sway the behaviour of centuries-old vampires by pouting and giving them the cold-shoulder when they don't act the way she wants. She can't take criticism but _loves_ to dish out judgement; she uses subtle manipulation she learned as the spoiled daughter of parents who died for her. She spends her days daydreaming through lessons when she bothers to show up to school, and her nights Stefan-longing and scribbling Deep Thoughts into her diary."

"Wow," Katherine blinked, stunned.

"You look a little stunned. You obviously don't know Elena and I had a little tiff," Giulia said, shrugging. "Still feel like masquerading as her? It'd take all the spice out of life. Anyway, what do you want?"

"No playing coy with you, is there?" Katherine purred, eyeing her from her painted toes to her freshly blow-dried hair. It was like pre-orphaned Elena was stood there, in all her Mean Girl glory. It hadn't come out often, but when the spirit took over, Elena had been capable of out-bitching Caroline Forbes. Giulia observed her. This was Elena if she actually made an effort. This ancient girl in front of her was not full-blown Katherine Pierce, she was trying to masquerade as Elena and found that doing so leached her of any style or defining features to attract attention. Katherine narrowed her eyes at her, a sudden glare making Giulia smile softly. She had her keys in her hand, idly playing with them while Katherine focused on her. "Where's Mason?"

Giulia pursed her lips thoughtfully, glancing away. "Playing Frisbee at the park?" she shrugged idly. She had received a cryptic text this morning from a new number; Mason had bought a burner phone to contact her with a number he had taken from Carol's address-book, telling her he was heading south-west. He had his surfboard, his truck, and no responsibilities back in Florida to tie him down. He had told Carol and Jenna that now that things were a little more settled with Carol and Tyler, he needed to keep moving, fleeing a bad breakup in Florida. He'd asked her not to save his number in her phone under his name, and had mentioned to her he might hit as far west as California. He'd heard of a pack near San Diego, hidden in the wooded hills.

"Playing Frisbee," Katherine simmered at her, "at the park." Giulia shrugged. "I suppose you think you're clever," Katherine said, a lethal smile illuminating her features. Giulia realised it was like watching Gollum and Smeagol argue in _The Two Towers_. Two sides of the same face. This one was far more interesting.

" _Marginally_ cleverer than the usual high-schoolers, drunk surfers and blushing southern _belles_ you terrorise and seduce, yes," Giulia said modestly. She had anticipated what Katherine's moves would be after Giulia chased her boy-toy and lupine sacrifice out of town. Adjust to Plan B: target Tyler Lockwood. Orchestrate a scenario wherein he triggered his curse – use his inability to walk away from a fight, his anger issues, push him to a breaking-point.

Of course, should Tyler trigger his curse, thus ensuring Damon viewed him as the real threat he might turn into, one false step from Tyler and Damon would yank his heart out of his chest. Katherine would lose another werewolf. And they were too difficult to replace for Katherine to be flippant about it.

Katherine talked a big game to Stefan and Damon but she only had so many do-overs. Only so many chances to get this thing done right – two chances, unless she wanted to spend the next decade searching out more werewolves to lead to the slaughter. And by that time Elena might be gone – or _turned_. How long could she survive the two Salvatore brothers' proximity without ending up dead-dead or a vampire?

No, Katherine wouldn't risk letting Elena out of her sights until Klaus had drained every last drop of blood from her body, and she had been granted her freedom, her absolution after half a millennium of running. Giulia thought Katherine was a fool to believe she'd ever have the forgiveness of a villain like Klaus; Elijah had told her some things, ways in which Klaus liked to punish his _siblings_. So how did he deal with his _enemies_ who betrayed him?

So she had two chances; Giulia had just royally mucked up the first, chasing Mason away. She only had Tyler now.

Katherine blinked. " _Blushing southern belles_? – Oh. You mean Stefan and Damon." She narrowed her eyes. "Those boys are smarter than you think."

"You don't _know_ how smart I think they are – which, given they've involved themselves with _Elena_ , is not very," Giulia said honestly. Neither Stefan nor Damon would have looked twice at Elena had she not so punishingly resembled their Katherine, whose eyes on her were dark and calculating. "And Stefan's not clever enough to remember what he wrote in his journals during the Twenties. He never re-reads his Ripper entries." She shook her head, sighing; much as she had been terrified of the Ripper when she was little, they were her favourite entries in Stefan's journals. Elicit, dangerous, outrageously macabre, manic and lusty. He made Dorian Gray look like a pussy.

But she had found reference to Klaus' curse in Stefan's diaries from 1922. His friend _Nik;_ the stories Rebekah had told him while they lounged in bed, mixing cocktails. She had even found photographs, tucked in between the brittle leaves of his leather-bound journal. She had still been able to smell the blood and gin on the age-damaged pages, Stefan's handwriting shifting dramatically from a serial-killer's elegant, meticulous cursive to his usual chicken-scratch, frantic markings as he tried to write everything he was thinking down too quickly, lest he forget, his lust for Rebekah giving way to devastation and confusion, horror at what memories he could sift through, afraid he was going mad as he read old entries and could remember nothing. But Giulia had read through it all, had guessed what had happened, and was made more curious by the holes in the story. The details.

The devil was always in the details; _Klaus_ was in the details of every line Stefan had written during his 1922 Ripper phase in Chicago. Well, Giulia had teased, Stefan would have been seventy-five in 1922; she wasn't surprised the dementia had kicked in. He had chuckled, glad she had made light of what he'd written in his journals.

But Stefan wouldn't dwell on those journals, those memories to realise the connection. Besides Elijah, Giulia and Stefan were the only two people in town who knew what Katherine was up to. Stefan didn't even realise it. But Elijah...

And Giulia had _that_ delicious gambit tucked inside her bra.

She had him to go home to tonight; he had promised her a Keralan fish curry, had let her smell the spices and herbs he was going to use to tempt her not to eat junk after hitting the gym. Another perfect meal for the continuing hot-spell they were blessed with. Katherine was making her late for dinner – she was anxious about not making Elijah wait for her, as it was a lovely gesture, cooking dinner for her when _he_ didn't have to eat. But he loved the sociability of meals, of cooking together, and she knew that. Relished the unfamiliar tradition.

"Do you want to know something ironic?" Giulia asked, and Katherine raised an eyebrow insolently. "It wasn't actually his part in the sacrifice that made it so easy to convince Mason to leave town. He seemed almost _relieved_ to think he wouldn't have to go through the transformations anymore. You might've just been able to convince him to stride to that fiery altar of blood and sacrifice himself…if it hadn't also meant two innocent girls would be slaughtered too."

Katherine scoffed, smirking. "Your bestie Caroline is hardly _innocent_."

"Darling, by _your_ standards, she's the fucking Virgin," Giulia said coolly, sweeping her eyes over Katherine. Over five-hundred years Giulia wondered just how many men had fallen to Katherine's _charms_ – vampire and human alike; she could compel the latter. The former, she had had to seduce the good old-fashioned way.

 _Tears aren't a woman's only weapon_ , Cersei Lannister had slurred into her wine during the Siege of King's Landing. _The best one is between your legs_.

Giulia wondered who would win the Game of Thrones – Katerina Petrova or Cersei Lannister?

Definitely Katherine. Vampirism aside.

"Your devotion to Caroline is absolutely darling," Katherine smiled viciously. "It's almost pathological."

"And your devotion to your reflection?" Giulia retorted, unfazed. "You might use Narcissa as your _name de guerre_."

"I see why Elena doesn't spend much time with you anymore. I have sources who tell me you two had a little bit of a _snit_ over Isobel," Katherine smiled wickedly. "Mommy issues on top of an achingly co-dependent relationship with your bestie shrouded in so much sexual-tension neither of you will _ever_ have a satisfying relationship."

"At least we'll have each other," Giulia replied without missing a beat, eyes sparkling. She could play this game; it was quite lovely to be playing a battle of bitchcraft against a girl whose face Elena had stolen, and wore with far less sass. If she had thought Giulia would crumble at little snips about a deteriorating friendship, or commenting on the nature of her bond with Caroline, Katherine needed to brush up on tactics and sharpen her claws. The little Kitty-Kat had picked the wrong prey to taunt; _Giulia_ was one of those angler fish, not a flattering comparison but accurate. Beyond the beguiling, pretty light was a vicious sea-monster who would take a chunk out of lulled prey. "How is _your_ friend Isobel, by the way?"

"Just fine," Katherine smiled beguilingly.

"She's not at all… _emotional_ at you plotting to slaughter her daughter?"

"That's the beauty of the humanity-switch," Katherine preened, tossing her hair over her shoulder, the curls bouncing almost sassily.

"And your old ally John Gilbert? Now I'm pretty sure _he_ still has his emotions, even if he's never had much humanity," Giulia mused.

"Haven't heard from him," Katherine shrugged uncaringly. "Don't tend to keep in contact with people who want me dead."

"No, you prefer to tie up the loose ends instead," Giulia said, eyeing her. She was surprised John had made it this long after the town centre massacre. "By the way, what _are_ you going to do now that the moonstone is gone?"

"Oh, I'm sure it'll turn up," Katherine said nastily, eyeing her. "Unless you want this town to drown in its own blood, you'll find a way of getting it back for me. If you have to scour the continent chasing after Mason Lockwood running with his tail between his legs, you'll find a way to get me that moonstone."

"Will I?" Giulia raised her eyebrows. "The thing is, Kitty, is that there is more than _one_ bidder on that little rock. And something tells me they want it far more than you do."

"Klaus wouldn't lift a finger chasing ghosts while he knows _I'm_ putting everything in place for him to lift the curse," Katherine said, self-assuredness written in the bold set of her shoulders, the jut of her jaw.

"While I'm sure that's true," Giulia shrugged a shoulder idly, "he'll let you do your thing, build your belief your salvation can be bought, and then take it all. Including you. Anyway, _he's_ not who I'm talking about. You've probably met him before, be it a while ago. Terrifyingly calm and callous, emotionally constipated, sartorially _exquisite_ , hair glossier and with prettier natural highlights than _yours_. Do you get it highlighted, by the way? You must do. And extensions and bumper-pads, right? That volume is envious, that _gloss_!" She tutted lightly, admiring. Katherine stared at her. There was a slyness undercutting the magnetism of her features, Katherine managed to be at once a coy darling and a vicious harpy, too predictable in her _unpredictability_. Her reactions were set off by hair-triggers, volatile, selfish and narcissistic, and driven by a single emotion: fear.

Giulia didn't mind admitting to herself that she enjoyed how changeable Katerina's features were. Everything was visceral, right there, emotions, annoyance, amusement, smugness, self-assurance, all played across her features, animated and delightfully refreshing. Elena had three: Pouting, Stefan-Longing, and Self-Righteously Indignant.

Katherine's features shifted, _fear_ flickering across her dark eyes before she shook her hair back, shoulders straightening, a self-assured smile on her face. "Elijah Mikaelson hasn't been seen for decades. Not since New Orleans burned in 1919."

"Elijah hasn't been seen by anyone who'd run in _your_ circles," Giulia said with a disdainful sniff, and Katherine narrowed her eyes at the implication. "You've made too much noise, Katherine, coming to town throwing your weight around, stirring up drama for the sake of it."

Katherine had never been part of her plans; there was no controlling her, no anticipating the lengths she would go to, and she was too old, paranoid and cruel to work against. She would see an attack coming a mile away, either brutal, desperate and in-your-face or a slow-burning long-con. No, the best way to get Katherine was if no-one suspected there was anything amiss. Giulia hadn't _planned_ to deal with Katherine; therefore she was successful when she acted on a whim, surprising them both.

 _You wait for the opportune moment_ , a rum-rich voice murmured in her ear.

She sighed, clicked her lap-counter, grabbed Katherine's head, and snapped her neck. Quickly, clinically, without thinking about anything else, no squeamishness or hesitation, using the training her dad had insisted she have. It didn't take more than three seconds, and a skinny heap crumbled at her feet, glossy curls shining in the sun. Not stopping to glance around, she used the mini epi-pen attached to her keychain, stabbing Katherine in the throat. It wasn't to combat exposure to peanut-butter; it had been modified by Miss Sheila, a mystical paralytic strong enough to take out a five-hundred-year-old vampire for an hour.

Giulia sighed, straightening up, and glanced around the empty parking-lot. The windows of the gym were tinted and, she knew, had little equipment arranged beneath them for gym-goers to be watching her. She had weighed the pros of paralysing Katherine as greater than the cons – the fact that she was now dead weight Giulia had to haul to and arrange in her car, completely unresponsive. But Katherine's dead weight was the same as Elena's – ninety pounds soaking-wet in her ski-gear, and she was more awkward than anything, skinny spider-limbs and sharp elbows. She unlocked her car, adjusting the passenger seat back as far as it would go, and looped her arms under Katherine's armpits, rather unkindly dragging Katherine's bare legs across the asphalt that seared through the soles of her sandals, stuffing her into the car. Out of habit, half thrown back to memories of taking care of drunk-Caroline, she leaned across Katherine, buckling her seatbelt, and tucked a wayward curl behind Katherine's ear as it swayed in front of her face.

Katherine's dark eyes followed her, the only indication she had recovered from her snapped neck, fury emanating from them, mingled with sheer panic, probably wondering what the hell Giulia had done to her. She imagined it was Katherine's own personal hell, trapped inside her own body, absolutely powerless to the mercy of someone else. An enemy she had _gloriously_ underestimated.

Giulia slung herself into the driver's seat, jamming the key into the ignition, coaxing the engine to life, relieved when the car rumbled. She adjusted the volume on the stereo, taking pleasure in the fact her broken window now sent Katherine's curls in an uncontrollable flurry around her head, caught in her shimmering lip-gloss. Giulia chuckled to herself, taking the exit out of the business-park where her gym was located, and started driving home.

Fifteen minutes later, she pulled the handbrake into place, knocking her gearstick familiarly to check it was in neutral as she withdrew her key. Her phone started to buzz as she unbuckled Katherine's seatbelt, looping the tiny little leather _Yves_ bag – Giulia had the same one, ironically, a remnant of her Lost Weekend with Caroline – over Katherine's head, thinking she wouldn't need it. She grabbed her phone from the little well by her gearstick and smiled.

"Hello, lovely," she purred. Oh, she was in a good mood.

" _Are you on your way_?" Elijah asked.

"I'm running a little late," Giulia said, glancing down at the prone Katherine. "Don't put anything in the oven yet."

" _How long will you be_?" Elijah asked calmly.

"Maybe forty minutes?" Giulia sighed.

" _If your car has broken down again, I really may have to insist you acquire a new mode of transportation_ ," Elijah said calmly.

"I've got a bike," Giulia shrugged. "I'll be home soon; I've just got to sort out a few things."

" _You sound cheerful, at least; did you get a good workout in?_ " Elijah asked.

"I did, actually. Saw Ric and Jeremy," Giulia smiled. "I managed to catch up with them, which I haven't for ages because some _devastating_ man has started dominating my spare-time."

" _I feel not in the slightest bit guilty_ ," Elijah said smilingly. " _I'd say hurry home, but your car would most likely spontaneously fragment along the asphalt_."

"Don't talk about her like that!" Giulia gasped teasingly. "She's a reliable old girl."

" _Unless you need to drive her anywhere_ ," Elijah quipped.

"I'm hanging up on you now," Giulia sniffed, and she heard Elijah chuckling as she did, in fact, hang up on him. She had only so much time before the paralytic wore off: using the military stance her dad had taught her, she pulled Katherine out of the car by her arm, draping her thin, angular frame across her shoulders, and adjusted her stance to take into account Katherine's dead weight. Luckily she was able to drive close to the tomb, otherwise it would have taken ages to carry her body through the woods, the effects of the paralytic wearing off too soon for comfort.

She grimaced and shouted, "Sorry!" when she stumbled, tripping down a few crumbled ancient steps covered in bracken and dry pine-needles, Katherine's weight tipping her forward – she saved herself a bad fall only by relinquishing Katherine's weight. The paralysed vampire dropped like an anvil down the steps, and Giulia grimaced guiltily as the body wearing her friend's face stopped, sprawled in an unflattering heap at the foot of the stairs, banged up and bleeding from the branch she had fallen into, gouging her face. She sighed, hopping down the rest of the steps, and glanced down at Katherine. "Whoops. Oh, sorry," she grimaced, peering at the damage, before shrugging, and going to check on the tomb entrance. The great carved stone door had been left ajar, Stefan had tried replacing it to prevent kids from exploring, finding the incinerated corpses with strange fangs, before getting distracted, and Giulia now had barely two feet to shove Katherine through into the black void beyond.

 _How best to do this_? she thought, frowning from Katherine to the tomb entrance. "Ah!" She snapped her fingers, chuckling, and grabbed hold of Katherine's ankles to drag her across the main chamber of the church basement where, so many months ago, Sheila, Bonnie and Bree had _temporarily_ lifted the spell on the tomb entrance.

Vampires could get in. But they couldn't _leave_.

The stone blockade was more for unwitting humans than the vampires entombed within. She'd have to get that set snugly back in place.

"It's lucky you're all eyelashes," Giulia grimaced, managing to manoeuvre Katherine into the gloomy little corridor, glowing in the half-light of the early-evening sun reflecting off the rock. There wouldn't be more than a sliver of light at any given time, until she got the stone moved. She coughed, dumping Katherine's legs after dragging her far enough into the tomb she was sure Katherine had passed through the mystical boundary. It smelled like ashes, the fire she had set months ago had blazed through the tomb, burning away the damp, at least for a little while. The corpses had turned to ash, billowing where she dumped Katherine on the ground, and she shivered, dusting off her legs, conscious Elijah would be able to pick up the scent.

 _Oh well_ , she thought. She didn't know what he got up to every day when she went out; she doubted he guessed most of what trouble she sauntered into. She dusted off her hands, brushed the ash off her feet, and slipped through the entrance.

"Bye, Kitty," she called joyfully, and there was a spring in her step as she made her way back to her car, chuckling, imagining the simmering rage Katherine had been forced to internalise by Sheila's mystical paralytic. "Have fun with the other vermin!"

 _Katherine = 1, Giulia = Fifty Gold Stars!_

She climbed into her car, enjoying the humid warmth as the backs of her thighs scratched against the warm blanket she used to cover her seat, uncapping her Gatorade before turning to the little _Yves_ bag. Curious, Giulia took it, opening the clasp. A fancy _Blackberry_ Torch 9800, a tube of _MAC_ Dazzleglass in 'Get Rich Quick' – "It looked _glorious_ on you," Giulia mused, eyeing the coppery shimmer gloss in the sunlight, thinking about the amusement she would get out of gifting it to Elena – an expensive _Givenchy_ mascara, and a _Tom Ford_ 'Shade  & Illuminate' crème highlighter and contouring compact. A single key with a magnolia keychain, an address embossed on one side.

 _Mrs Flowers' B &B_, she thought, with a smirk. No, Katherine was not the tawdry motel girl; she liked to be waited on. Mrs Flowers was an old dear with a charming little bed-and-breakfast downtown, a favourite for retirees and honeymooners, attached to a delightful little horse-riding school out in the sticks for horseback tours of the falls their town was named for.

She tucked everything back into the little purse, pulling out her own phone and making a couple of calls. They didn't last more than a few minutes each, and by the time she reached home, it was spot-on forty minutes after she had spoken with Elijah. The fragrant spices and flavours of a rich curry drifted on the air as she parked her car, and she followed her nose out to the deck, where Elijah was stood at the grill, parting the tin-foil on a huge parcel, steam billowing from it, little ceramic dishes she had started collecting full of chopped cilantro and lemon-wedges, a bowl of fluffy jasmine rice covered on the table set for two, with candles flickering, enhancing the scent of citrus to keep away the early mosquitoes.

"Hello," she hummed happily, winding her arms around Elijah's waist, hugging him from behind. She pressed kisses to his neck in greeting.

"You have an exceptional gift for punctuality," Elijah said, sipping his wine and shooting her a sidelong smile, before he passed her the glass. She smiled, taking it from him, leaned in to kiss his cheek, as he tore the foil open, releasing a cloud of steam so tangible she could bite it, showing the contents – a colourful, bubbling curry of onion, bell peppers, unnameable spices and chillies, halved cherry-tomatoes, coconut-milk, a large slab of salmon laid over all that Elijah started to break up into large chunks, shrimp curled here and there, squeezing lemon juice over it all, sprinkling cilantro over it before setting it down on the table.

"This looks _stunning_ ," Giulia beamed, sipping the wine and passing the glass back to Elijah with another kiss to his cheekbone. She laughed joyfully, "You get laid and I get _spoiled_!"

"Well, we must keep up your strength," Elijah said, and Giulia chuckled as he served them, her first, gentleman that he was.

"I have to say, meals like this really are a great incentive to put out," Giulia said, licking the curry sauce off her thumb as she cleaned a drop from the edge of her dish. Elijah chuckled, his eyes glinting in the sun as he shook his head. Giulia caught his eye, devouring him with her eyes. "Alright, I don't need _that_ much incentive at all!" He laughed outright, and she smiled, tucking into her dinner. She fell quiet, caught up in enjoying the flavours of her meal – the creamy curry sauce, the beautiful salmon, the cherry-tomatoes that were like miniature bombs of flavour bursting on her tongue, the tang of the lemon and the heat of the chillies, the fragrance of the spices. She made Elijah laugh, her reactions a little too noisy and lusty to be entirely decent for the dinner-table, but it was _good_ , and perfect in the heat, with the late-evening sun beating down, shimmering off the lake.

"So, what have you been doing today, Mr Mikaelson?" Giulia asked, crossing her ankles in his lap after she had done the dishes – she refused to let him help, as he had cooked for them, and he ruined her organisation in the dishwasher – and refreshing his wine-glass from the chilled, sweating bottle. He had his sketchbook out again; she had her notepad and a catalogue from the hardware store.

"Very little," Elijah confessed, looking tired. "Screening calls from Carafina."

"She _misses_ you," Giulia smiled warmly. "She's not used to sharing you. What would she do if she knew I had you all to myself?"

"Most likely laugh in disbelief," Elijah said, sipping his wine, trailing his fingertips up her leg, tickling circles on the tender skin under her knee, making her wriggle and smile.

"That you're here in Virginia?" Giulia asked, raising an eyebrow, already knowing the answer.

"That I'm here…with you," Elijah said, giving her a sidelong look that was at once hesitant and sly. He passed her the wine-glass, absentmindedly rubbing his thumb across her ankle, the dainty anklet clasped there.

"Traits you had as a human are heightened as a vampire," Giulia mused, glancing at Elijah. "Have you always been such a masochist when it comes to denying yourself what you want?"

"I prefer to think of it as _self-discipline_ ," he said, glancing at her with an ironic little smile, and Giulia smiled, shaking her head. They were veering toward dangerous territory – his _family_. Elijah's self-denial stemmed from his brother's reaction to anyone taking anything for their own happiness that did not conform to what _he_ wanted.

"As I said, _masochism_ ," Giulia said, planning several teasing, loud kisses to his lips, smiling as he chuckled softly.

"I assure you, I receive no gratification from denying myself what I desire," Elijah sighed, sipping his wine, his expression becoming faraway and heart-breaking.

"So why do it?" Giulia prompted gently. Elijah gave her a sidelong look.

"The repercussions became too…debilitating to consider indulging myself, even at my most…lost, when such things would have been my salvation," Elijah said, sighing heavily. "The desire for something worth fighting for was always offset by the knowledge I had of its inevitable…debilitating end."

"Why did the ending have to be inevitable?" Giulia asked quietly, not defensive but curious, seeing the symmetry in their relationship, the _game_ they were embroiled in, and Elijah's past. The way Elijah had described his family dynamics was absurd and pre-Machiavellian and flabbergasting. The black hole of dysfunction at the centre of the broken family was _Klaus_. The way Elijah had described Klaus' behaviour, even clinically detached as his voice had been, she had seen a visceral reaction in Elijah's body-language, the tension and quiet rage, the despair and helplessness. Klaus, from what she had heard of him, was a paranoid, narcissistic manipulator, malicious, self-absorbed, _abusive_ to such a shocking degree, some of Elijah's stories had truly appalled her.

And she had read _Game of Thrones_ ; after Joffrey Baratheon baddies would have to work _very_ hard to shock her.

* * *

 **A.N.** : I'm looking forward to Giulia's future when I can have her and Katerina team up. I feel like they'd enjoy each other, once they got past the whole Salvatore brother crap. But then, Giulia's not one to take on other people's issues as her own…


	18. Story-Time

**A.N.** : Guess what, I've discovered what a three-year-old could've taught me that the _OneDrive_ will allow me to save work I do on my iPad – chaps, there may be hope for updates yet!

* * *

 **Dangerous Beauty**

 _18_

 _Story-Time_

* * *

The water lapped gently around her waist later, bubbles tickling her back as she squeezed the washcloth over Elijah's chest. She pressed a kiss to his neck and wrapped her arms around him, resting her chin on his shoulder. He was telling her about Rebekah, his youngest sister, and how Klaus had broken her, "…he would torment her, physically – imprison her, give her a vervain-poisoned blood-source after he had starved her, beat and humiliate her – in private and in front of others powerless to stop him. Wheedle her, whisper things into her ear when she was at her most vulnerable, implant false memories, bully and berate her…then he would be sweet to her, gifting her things, make her so desperate for those moments of his affection that she would endure any hardship he could mete out on her, as long as he came back to her, smiling and gentle. She _believed_ him."

"The Taming of the Shrew," Giulia sighed glumly, pressing her lips softly to his shoulder-blade. She had always hated that play – in the film Heath Ledger had made famous, they had drawn the final curtain at the end of Act One. The second act of Shakespeare's _original_ play had dealt with the use of domestic violence – physical, mental and sexual – as weapons employed by her husband to _break_ Katerina. She wondered just how completely Klaus had _possessed_ Rebekah, and it made her stomach hurt, made her wince in grief and a slow-burning rage for the girl she hadn't even met.

"Mm," Elijah murmured, gazing into the distance, head resting back against her shoulder, her hands between his, fingers straight like steeples. She frowned softly.

"Where were you?" Elijah glanced around, eyebrows rising subtly in a question. "I know you; he would have been without a head if you'd ever seen him lay a finger on her with your own eyes." His eyes glowed, and he tilted his head back for a gentle kiss. She didn't have to see Elijah with his family to know how he would treat them. She had seen him with Ashlyn, with Cara and Vera, with Chocolat and Aljaž and Jacques, with Victoire and Françoise-Amélie; she knew how Elijah treated _her_.

Elijah sighed, pressing his head back against her shoulder, eyes clamped shut. "After we were run out of Marseille in the 1040s A.D., we resolved to keep moving, to present ourselves as an ever more challenging target," Elijah sighed, watching as he dripped water from his fingertip on her knee. "We found ourselves in the Italian states in the twelfth century, at which time Niklaus…began to exhibit the behaviour he has become known for. A heightened sense of paranoia; lashing out with ever-increasing brutality against those he convinced himself were his enemies; ever more volatile and demanding…a cruel streak, reminiscent of our father in his worst moments, started to define his behaviour toward us, some of his own… _warped_ understanding of _love_ mutilated into a sense of…jealous, unforgiving possessiveness, something horrifying.

"We found ourselves in an alien world, after the home we had come to realise had been an idyll; no-one alive today can possibly recreate Europe of the High Middle Ages, for all Ridley Scott attempted to do so with _Kingdom of Heaven_ ," Elijah said, giving her a little smile; she had put the Director's Cut on the other day as background noise while she studied. "Still, it was surviving a mystical attack, the creation of the silver daggers you have encountered in your research, that I come back to, every time I try to reconcile the change in him…it was this attempt against our existence that I believe shattered Niklaus' by then very fragile hold on his sanity."

"You think he is insane?" Giulia asked quietly.

"I think he is not altogether _well_ ," Elijah sighed, "but this does not excuse his behaviour." He sighed thoughtfully. "Although how the world looked, so many centuries ago, as vampires we were out of place only by our habit of drinking blood. It was a world of…intense violence and religious superstition, feudal warfare. The lives of those not born to the nobility or the wealthy were considered utterly worthless, slavery concealed as serfdom, and even the powerful were vulnerable to political intrigues, assassinations and mutilation; disease, torture and worse as punishment, public executions, entire villages put to the sword during feudal struggles, women carried off, children enslaved. It was a world I remembered as a young man in Kattegat…but not a culture my younger siblings could ever imagine just from the old warriors' descriptions of summer raids… The new world we had immersed ourselves in fashioned Niklaus, he assimilated to it…he just…never evolved as the rest of the world became more civilised."

"It sounds like he is trapped psychologically in that time," Giulia murmured. "But you didn't answer my question. Where were you, while he was abusing Rebekah?" She asked him in a fair voice, not accusing but curious. Elijah sighed, glancing back at her.

"After the attempt on our lives, we decided it would be best not to draw attention to ourselves by remaining together… I left the Italian states to discover southern Spain with Gyda and Isak… Kol fled east to Asia, a continent he has returned to every century since, his favourite. Lagertha, my fierce and militant sister, took Rebekah and disappeared… This, Niklaus could not forgive; he took it as an attack against him to deprive him of his Rebekah, who had long been his defender, his hero, his voice when she was but a child and he was too fearful to raise his head… It was Lagertha who first fell prey to a silver dagger to the heart by Niklaus' hand. He found them, living as the honoured wife and stepdaughter of a nobleman in the Bavarian mountains, in a fashion they had learned from Lucrezia. After slaughtering the family who had ensured their safety, he punished Rebekah for abandoning him, over many decades, locked in a castle in the mountains. Rebekah became unrecognisable – _utterly_ enthralled by Niklaus… It was not until decades later that Kol tracked them down, shocked by the change in Rebekah; suspecting what Niklaus had done to her, out of revenge for her, Kol pulled the dagger from Lagertha's chest, and while she dealt with Niklaus, Kol brought my sister to me in Jerusalem, where I lived with Gyda. And it took a very long time to mend the damage Niklaus had wrought on Rebekah…we consulted witches, who cleansed what Niklaus had implanted in Rebekah's mind. Some things we had to remove. Scars remained… Our darling Rebekah, our baby-sister, was gone, she no longer walked on air; but she was stronger for what Kol and I had done to save her."

Giulia exhaled quietly, brushing her lips against Elijah's shoulder thoughtfully. She could imagine, and really did not want to, how Klaus had _punished_ his sister into complete subservience. She wondered just how warped the bond of family had become in Klaus' mind, suffering a psychotic break in a time when unforgiving brutality and creative torture was the norm, how deep had his attachment to Rebekah been even before turning into vampires?

"He didn't just torture and manipulate her, did he?" she said in a deadened voice, and Elijah stilled, before glancing over his shoulder. His expression, so carefully hiding his emotions, said it all. She flicked her eyes over his face. "His sister?"

Elijah gave a funny little nod. " _Half_ -sister."

"Half?"

"Niklaus and Rebekah were always close, even from the time Rebekah was in the cradle," Elijah said softly. "Mother struggled to keep a child to term between them – there were four summers between them, and he was utterly entranced when she came along. Father impressed that she was _his_ responsibility while Mother performed her duties as a healer…and the jarl's wife… Privacy was not then what it is now, and he learned the way of the world as he saw it in our small community; as we grew my siblings and I had all shared a bed, for warmth and security..." He sighed softly. "As they got older, Niklaus' relationship with our father deteriorated over Niklaus' behaviour, his irresponsible attitude. His arrogance. Rebekah, on the other hand – after Lagertha, she was his favourite. He had always preferred his daughters. And Rebekah blossomed – stubborn, to her core, and at times not very clever, driven by her emotions, but _sweet_. She stood up for Niklaus when Father bullied him. They became very close – too close, we often worried."

"Did you ever say anything?" Giulia asked curiously.

"Oh, yes," Elijah sighed. "Father beat Niklaus for it. A cousin was accepted; a _sister_ … We all suspected his attachment to her was more than brotherly. It was not until Mother turned us into vampires we truly realised how deep Niklaus' bond with Rebekah was…"

"You've never told me about it," Giulia said quietly. She had read about the genesis of vampires from Veronica's diaries; but it was one thing to read a history-book and another to hear truths _from the source_.

"It is not a time I like reliving," Elijah said sadly, threading his fingers through hers and crossing his arms, cuddling her close. "What led us to be turned into vampires… Suffice it to say that after fratricide – even if accidental…rape and incest were just another two on the list of taboos Niklaus broke."

"Fratricide?" Giulia said hollowly.

"I was born the eldest of nine children," Elijah sighed. "Isak was a babe-in-arms when a plague ravaged Kattegat, during the summer I joined Father on my first raid to the Baltic lands to the east. We lost a sister. Freya. We returned home with ships laden with gold, in time to light her funeral pyre… Whatever gentleness Father had burned along with her. It was her loss that prompted my parents to risk the open ocean in search of a land where the men were strong and did not fear disease… _this_ land, as it turned out. We settled a colony and eventually made peace with a local tribe. Men who turned into beasts every full-moon. Eventually, these men became our close allies. Willem was the first child Mother bore in our new home, the summer after we made berth, then Niklaus three winters after him. By the time Rebekah was born, I had married, and Gyda was well on her way… Four years after Rebekah, Mother bore Henrik. My youngest brother, and the last child Mother would bear…and burn…" Elijah was quiet for a very long time, brushing his finger over his lips pensively, eyes on her toes as she dabbled them absently in the water. "It was Henrik's death on a full-moon that triggered a war with our neighbours, after over two decades of peace, the tribe of werewolves who lived and hunted these woods of Virginia for thousands of years before Western settlers colonised it…"

Elijah trailed off, staring unseeingly into his wine-glass after refilling it, lying subdued in the water that was slowly becoming cooler. Giulia frowned, churning over what she had learned.

"If Henrik was killed by werewolves, why did you accuse Klaus of fratricide?" she asked gently.

"The night Henrik died, he had followed Niklaus out of the safety of the jarlshall," Elijah sighed, as if he had told this story far too many times, though he never stopped hoping the ending would be different. He sipped his wine, passing the glass to her. "It was customary for Father to extend an invitation to those living in the farmlands on the outskirts of the colony to dine and sleep within the great hall on full-moon nights. During such times, when the jarlshall was full to the rafters, it was easy to slip away unnoticed…"

Giulia didn't press, but waited; when Elijah wanted to talk about his family, his _past_ , he could talk for hours, and she just listened, absorbed by the descriptions of his memories, his _life_ , enthralled.

"There was a young woman…she was the daughter of a Native slave taken from a neighbouring tribe – even by the standards of our time, our culture, she was considered very pretty – she was less a labourer, more a bed-slave, in a place where women were scarce," Elijah sighed. The differences in his upbringing compared to hers were staggering – he was a bona fide _Viking_ with all that entailed – summer raids, stories of Valhalla, human-sacrifice, slavery. It was difficult, when he was wearing his _Ermengildo Zegna_ suits, to reconcile Elijah with a fierce Viking warrior pillaging neighbouring lands. When his shirt came off, that aged blue tattoo winding around his upper-arm, his scars, it was easier. The descriptions he gave of his human life were too… _real_. At one time in his life, Elijah had been a Viking. But he had also been a French nobleman, an Italian Renaissance painter, a Middle-Eastern physician, a Manhattan philanthropist, an Oxford professor, a WWII dam-buster fighter-pilot, a tea-plantation owner in rural China, a doctor in India, a prohibition gangster in New Orleans. All those she could believe; but it was his first, human, life, that seemed so incongruous with the enigmatic, calm Elijah he had become in the last millennium.

"By the time she had caught Niklaus' eye she had already born several children, some of whom survived infancy… From what I can remember of Niklaus as a young man, he was…petulant, arrogant…a show-off – but when he wished to be, he could be thoughtful, sweet; he was a _romantic_. Niklaus became infatuated with Tatia; he fell genuinely in love with her… They – fucked," he said, giving her a sidelong smile, heat colouring his cheeks. It was strange to hear Elijah swear; neither of them really did. "Often, I believe. Always in secret, or so they thought." Giulia chuckled, matching the rich rumble that accompanied a sad, reminiscent smile. Elijah sighed, the smile fading. "This devastated Finn."

" _Finn_?" Elijah's eldest brother, born the first of a set of twins within the same year as Elijah, Giulia had pieced together from what little Elijah told her of him that Finn had once been his favourite brother. During their human lives they were inseparable. But Finn had been "in a box" since the twelfth century, since the entire lot of them had a silver dagger plunged through their hearts.

"Mm," Elijah grunted softly. "They were obsessed with each other, Tatia and Finn. As a free man, the son of the earl, and she a slave, it was Finn's right to take her whenever he wished. Despite her willingness, he would not bed her while she remained a slave; this, I have always thought, _terrified_ Tatia. Finn's…love for her was not like Niklaus', it was not… _young_. Not the _enthusiastic,_ thrilling love Klaus had for her that would have burned itself out too quickly; Finn's love was steady, not exciting but deep and earnest. Finn was considerate to her, _kind_ , he protected her children – he had always had a deeply protective streak where children were concerned… Tatia had never been treated in such a way – I believe she encouraged Niklaus because he represented what she knew, what she felt was safe: men lusting after her, taking her when they wished. Niklaus most likely gave her trinkets as signs of his affection, which she must have equated to the gifts other men paid her with... I _once_ saw Finn with her; they were just sitting together, her wrapped up in his arms, watching the falls, just _together_ …"

Giulia absorbed all of this. Casually as Elijah spoke, he had finished his wine in one, already refilling his glass. He sighed heavily, closing his eyes, and rested his head back against her shoulder, blindly passing back the glass.

"She died, didn't she?" Giulia guessed, taking a generous mouthful of wine, gently tapping the base of the glass against his pectoral for him to take back.

"Tatia was the original sacrifice in the spell my mother placed upon Niklaus."

"You always refer to it as a _spell_ ," Giulia mused, after mulling over the implications that Elijah's mother had sacrificed the slave-girl two of her sons had loved in a spell on the younger. "I've never once heard you say 'curse' when we discuss the ritual. You don't think it's a curse."

"I do not believe it was ever my mother's intention to…punish Niklaus," Elijah said softly. He sighed. "My mother did what she wanted for her own reasons, but they were driven purely by her desire to protect her family… Over time Niklaus actually _convinced_ himself that Mother placed the spell on him as a _curse_ in punishment…"

"After what he did later, he more than earned worse," Giulia said quietly, thinking of the stranger, Rebekah, whom her stomach evaporated in anguish over. The Rebekah she felt she knew from Stefan's diary-entries from 1922. Giulia was not unfeeling; she was _devastated_ the way others were, felt remorse, terror, heart-ache, ecstasy. She could _feel_ for absolute strangers. Certain people just took the introversion of her emotions when they were superfluous to a dangerous situation that needed cold, clinical objectivity, as callousness.

"I have often thought so," Elijah agreed. "And on more than one occasion Niklaus hinted that he believed so also. In the beginning he suspected Mother had cursed him earlier knowing what he would become."

"He excused away his behaviour as a self-fulfilling prophecy his mother had seen?" Giulia frowned, leaning forward to sip at the wine Elijah offered her, tilting the glass for her, his eyes thoughtful as he watched her drink. She licked her lips, and his eyes watched. "She knew he would turn into a monster therefore he was justified in being one?"

Elijah gave an odd little shrug. "Perhaps," he said softly.

"Did Klaus ever express any remorse for what he did to Rebekah?" she asked curiously.

"Oh, often. Centuries later. Without a drop of sincerity," Elijah sighed. "He developed the habit of using flippancy, arrogance, violent outbursts to deal with any emotional shift he did not understand. If he felt shame, embarrassment, vulnerability, he lashed out in fear and confusion, usually pinpointing others' deepest insecurities, destroying things precious to those around him in retaliation for shaking the fragile hold he had on his own psyche."

"So how did he become that person?" Giulia mused. "Was the silver-dagger his breaking-point after so long?"

Elijah chuckled suddenly. She raised her eyebrows. "Two centuries is not long."

"Three times longer than _my_ life-expectancy," Giulia retorted lightly, and Elijah acquiesced with a little tilt of his head. She sighed, combing his damp hair from his face with her fingertips, leaning in to give that tempting mole beneath his ear a kiss. "Perhaps the silver-dagger, in his mind, became a physical manifestation of everything he feared. Vulnerability, death, being utterly at the mercy of someone else… He has used the daggers to try and break your siblings because they were the weapon that ultimately broke him. If he's as much a narcissist as you say, he'd never dream people did not react to things the same way he does."

"They certainly are the only way he could defeat my siblings," Elijah said thoughtfully. "As his paranoia grew, so did Niklaus' pathological need for _control_ over every aspect of his life, including us and _our_ lives. Simply put, however, we were too strong. The daggers provided the only way he could exert absolute authority over us, and we were left wholly vulnerable to it."

"So…Finn, Lagertha, Isak, Willem, Rebekah and Gyda," Giulia said, giving his shoulder a gentle kiss with each name she counted off. "You believe he has daggered them all? All but Kol." Elijah didn't answer for a moment, finger drawing across his lips thoughtfully.

"Willem… _no_ ," he said finally, frowning in thought. "He… When we fled Marseilles, he disappeared into the winds with Lucrezia's children. Not a trace, just like Lucrezia herself several months before." His eyes fell on the glossy sleeve of the three-inches-thick biography on the Florentine-born Lucrezia Alessandra di Salvatore, the long-living Countess of Provence – and _notorious_ – between 1002 and 1043AD. Possibly a daughter of the noble Salvatore family that, by the fifteenth century, had gained immense power, lands and influence in Florence, culminating in their daughters Veronica and Carafina making the most advantageous matches in the Italian states…a _distant_ relative of Giulia's. The book rested on the side-table by the tub, the book Giulia had been annotating before Elijah had joined her in the bath. Hot baths seemed to be catnip for Elijah. She blinked, glancing from him to the book and back, her eyebrows knotting together slightly. Elijah…

"Elijah… Your _name de guerre_ during the eleventh century wasn't perchance _Elia_ , was it?" she asked, her lips twitching. He glanced over his shoulder, giving her a look that said everything. She grimaced and dropped her head, bumping her forehead against his shoulder, making Elijah chuckle. "Ugh, I'm studying one of your ex-girlfriends?!"

"Why _are_ you studying Lucrezia, by the way?" Elijah asked curiously.

"Believe it or not, she's a reference in one of Miss Sheila's Occult lectures," Giulia said.

"I do believe it," Elijah chuckled at some private thought. "She'd find that quite delightful."

"Miss Sheila gave an entire lecture on her," Giulia smiled fondly. She loved Sheila Bennett. "Listening to her, you'd think Lucrezia was the Tyrion Lannister of the supernatural community."

"Is this another reference to that book Cara's had you reading?" Elijah sighed, and she pinched Elijah's waist for rolling his eyes.

" _Game of Thrones_. We're planning a winter elopement," Giulia said, sipping some wine. "No grand summer weddings, thankyouverymuch." Elijah rolled his eyes again.

"Well, if there was ever one to admire for her knowledge and manipulation of witchcraft, it was Lucrezia," Elijah sighed softly. "I believe there is still an underground cult of witches in Marseille who sacrifice to her."

"She was a witch?"

"Oh, no, just insatiably intelligent," Elijah chuckled, smiling fondly. He glanced at her, eyes bright. "Stunningly beautiful as she was, trained in combat, her greatest weapon was her mind. What was it she used to say…'I have my mind...and a mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone if it is to keep its edge'…" Giulia raised an eyebrow.

"That's a Tyrion quote," she said, eyeing Elijah dubiously. He shrugged.

"My family came upon Lucrezia mere weeks after she had married the Count, barely decades after we had turned and fled this world for our old country," Elijah mused. "Over our years together in Marseille, we became very close…through all our adventures there – possessions by ghosts of Roman witches, child-sadists, political intrigues, sieges – she nurtured the healing of our family after the horror of what we had become nearly destroyed it." He sighed, reaching for the book, and eyed the glossy protective cover. "This biography is exquisitely candid and personal. Honest to a fault… She was imperfect and terrifying, absolutely delightful and loyal… _Brave_ … she was our _friend_ … Lagertha looked on her as a sister, two fierce, martial women who were absolutely delightful and seductive, who knew how to laugh, charming, good-hearted women; Finn absolutely adored her, I do not think Finn had ever had a friend like her… Gyda…for a time I believe she looked upon Lucrezia as a mother. A mother who did not age, healed from any injury just as we did, survived a brutal childbirth and was on horseback leading the vanguard to break a siege the next day..." He sighed, shaking his head. "Lucrezia mended our family, nurturing our relationships when we ourselves were too… _stubborn_ to mend the breaches; when she vanished, everything disintegrated."

"So she's the one who got away," Giulia guessed, smiling. Elijah chuckled.

"Had we remained under her influence, well… There is no use in wishing I could rewrite the past," Elijah sighed, shaking his head. "We are what we are. Though certainly she would have made us ashamed for some of the things we have done – and Niklaus would never have _dared_ cross her."

"He was afraid of her?"

"We respected her," Elijah chuckled easily. "In the way it is possible to both fear and _love_ , admire someone. _Strong_ and gentle, seductive and playful, she was the most…enigmatic leader of her time, deeply loyal, frighteningly intelligent, wicked and sweet, joyous in conflict, obsessed with intrigue. And kind. Yes, Niklaus was afraid of her. He valued her friendship and respect, and she was not afraid to tell him when his behaviour disgraced him."

"You think he might have turned out differently, if she'd been around longer?" Giulia guessed.

"I know he would," Elijah sighed. "Unfortunately for us, she did not; to this day I have no idea what happened to her… At the point in our lives when we met Lucrezia…we were still very much, psychologically, _human_. It was the only time in all my years that I savour as the very last moments of my…innocence. We had no idea what we truly were, our abilities, we had no idea what we would become, we would never have dared dream we would see _ten centuries_ eclipse while we remained unchanged, growing ever more powerful… My family's time in Marseille remains…the golden age of my life as a vampire… You would not have recognised us."

"No?"

"No," Elijah chuckled. Then he sighed, seemingly exhausted, his shoulders drooping as he lifted a hand to rub his face. "We were… _young_. _So_ very young, and afraid. We had no control over our impulses; our emotions terrified us; we found ourselves in an alien land, a culture we did not know. We were the outsiders then. We did not know our own abilities; we had no concept of our own strength, or durability, our ability to compel others. Oh, we had fought werewolves, as men. We had learned we could suffer from their bites but not die from their attack… Like infants, we had to learn what we had become... But it took time, and we learned how invulnerable we were only because we were tested so brutally… Everything was ours to discover, to experience – and we did, with Lucrezia. She befriended us, sheltered us; from her we learned how to survive, she taught us how to _live_ again… We had our adventures, back then when the world was brand-new to us, with _her_ we had a family; she was the heart of it… We were then what we might have been."

"That's a lot to put on one person," Giulia said softly, thinking of this Lucrezia woman. She hadn't read the biography in its entirety yet – apparently she didn't need to; she had the best resource possible lying between her legs!

"Lucrezia could bear the weight of it," Elijah said distractedly, eyeing the book. He had flipped the cover open, reading what had been scrawled on the first page. "What is this?"

"The author only publishes in limited-runs," Giulia said, smiling happily. Tracking down the biography had been difficult, but she had discovered a wonderful little independent publishing company that focused on small-batch printings with exquisite illustrations, meticulously bound in ethically-sourced leather or printed linen, beautiful classics printed as a collectors' set, all of Shakespeare's plays with unusual front-cover graphics picking up a theme only hinted at in single lines of the plays. "It's through an independent publisher; I had to get the author's details off of _them_ so I could purchase the book direct because they didn't have any copies. He signed it before he mailed it."

"It's a thoughtful message," Elijah murmured.

"When I emailed him to ask for a copy, he asked what my interest was in the Countess of Provence," Giulia said softly. "I told him about Sheila referencing her in my Occult class, and about that dissertation I'm writing on exceptional women throughout history. He sold me a copy of his book on condition I sent him a copy of my dissertation. And speaking of – I need to get out and do some work." She dipped a kiss against Elijah's shoulder.

"That dissertation you're writing for your own amusement!" Elijah chuckled, gripping her knee to keep her in place.

"Yes, but the water's getting cold," Giulia said, kissing the back of his neck, and he acquiesced, allowing her to climb as gracefully as she could out of the bathtub, following her out, and she smiled gently at him as he tucked her close, wrapping a huge towel around their hips. She linked her arms around his waist, leaning close to give him a gentle kiss. She always knew when he was upset; he became affectionate, more tactile even than usual. And then he grew distant, the momentary relief of being emotionally intimate with someone, shedding burdens he had carried for far too long, embarrassing him, unsettling the cool composure he put so much effort into maintaining, making him that much more resistant to emotional vulnerability. She could coax him out of it, gently, or demanding, depending on what had caused him to curl back into his shell. But pets were the greatest help; Elijah _loved_ Firenze, and Giulia remembered Elijah's spaniel. She imagined pet-therapy was the simplest and most effective way Elijah could work on his _issues_.

She enjoyed the affectionate phase, relaxed on the sofa, the entire living-room just a mess of paperwork, stacks of books, meticulous design plans, calculations, fabric swatches and the hardware-store catalogue decorated with fluorescent Post-It flags.

"One day, will you tell me how you've arranged the system of what you're working on?" Elijah asked, stroking Firenze's head as her cat purred in his lap. They were both smitten with Elijah.

"Oh, it's very easy," Giulia said, using her pen to point at different areas of the floor. "Over there is college work: resources for _Punk & Politics_ and my awesome-women module. Reference-books for my medieval languages classes, and my Occult, Enlightenment Literature, philosophy, engineering and physics classes and _that_ is the information for the sports and social committees I've joined at UV. I've got a few projects on the go for each of my classes beyond what's required from the syllabus because I'm _paying_ to honour them with my IQ, I might as well get the most out of it. If _those_ start to bore me, I pop over to _my_ theses so I can really stretch, and once I start to get a little frazzled on too much coffee, there's a stack of vintage _Vogues_ that belonged to my grandmother Doll, and antique recipe-books I managed to track down from a rare-books store in Manhattan, so I can work on outfits for the vintage festival Cara got me tickets to, and the 1860s celebratory Founders' dinner I'm recreating to celebrate the sesquicentennial anniversary of Mystic Falls' charter…"

"The 'sesquicentennial' anniversary?"

"One-hundred and fiftieth," Giulia smiled, and Elijah gave her that quiet, enigmatic little smile before chuckling, shaking his head.

"And the rest?"

"That box over by the bar contains all of the Gilbert journals, which I stole from the Gilberts' lake-house," Giulia said. "I burned most of the weapons I found but some might prove useful. _That_ trunk I stole from the Lockwood attic; I gave Mason PDF copies of the files I scanned into my computer so he has access, but I'm trying to consolidate the Lockwood journals with the Gilbert ones, my copies of the Fell and Forbes diaries, and I've pilfered a couple of Stefan's more _intriguing_ journals." She gave Elijah a lewd smirk. "Over _there_ is all the information Caroline and I have started pulling together trying to organise our road-trip this summer, and on the floor are some designs I've sketched to refurbish my uncle's teardrop-trailer he bought in the UK ages ago."

"Oh, is that all?" Elijah asked mildly.

"No – under the coffee-table are the plans Caroline and I and the rest of the Social Committee at school have been working on for the Sixties dance and the junior-prom," Giulia stifled a yawn, "I'm Treasurer so I have final say; it's up to me to reign Caroline's enthusiasm in, the others are too afraid – you've seen Queenie in _Blackadder_? Imagine her _with fangs_. Managed to convince Car-Bear to save Gatsby for _our_ senior prom theme, although she thinks I'll just graduate this June and be done with it. Maybe I will, take a gap-year and travel before I start my sophomore year at college. I can apply from the road… And speaking of, inside the cabinet beside you are course catalogues from various different colleges and I need to do some research about schools appropriate for Caroline, I don't want her falling in with some _sorority_ that hooks her in by masquerading as a haema-sexual-sadist vampire cult."

"Stay away from the Ivies," Elijah said, and Giulia did a double-take. He smirked, chuckling, and shook his head, scoffing, " _Haema_ -s _exual-sadists_ … Anything else?"

"Over _there_ …is research on the doppelganger; the entire concept has me curious," Giulia said. "How did Katerina crop up in _Bulgaria_ only five-hundred years after your mother slaughtered Tatia here, in what became Mystic Falls, in the late-tenth century? Only your family would have had such mobility. So did you bring Tatia's children back across the ocean, or does the doppelganger crop up in Tatia's bloodline, either from her children or her ancestors? Was Tatia's father a Viking? Or a male labouring slave you brought with you from Kattegat, taken from the lands you plundered during the raids? What were _his_ origins? That could answer where it would be most likely you could find a doppelganger. Are there _more_ doppelgangers sauntering about the earth? I can't imagine Nature would provide only _two_ within a _millennium_ , there had to be an insurance policy, another somewhere at the same time in case one died." She scratched her head, then sighed, yawning.

"I asked," Elijah said, shaking his head. "You'd think I'd have learned by now."

"I know, and I haven't even finished," Giulia smiled. "I haven't told you about _my_ 'vampire diary' for successive generations of Founders to learn from; I haven't told you about my plans for overthrowing the Council from the inside; and we haven't even touched on the _sacrifice_."

"Do tell."

"And ruin the surprise?" Giulia smirked. "I'll breast my cards, you do the same." He chuckled; Elijah had pulled out a worn set of playing-cards, and they sat on the sofa, idly playing a seventeenth-century game she had learned in the limousine headed toward Connecticut for the solstice in December.

"Would you teach me Norse?" Giulia asked, glancing up at Elijah as he hissed, frowning at her cards as she laid them down.

"Why would you wish to learn a dead language?"

"Because I can," Giulia smiled, and Elijah chuckled. "How much did your language change when you emigrated here? I imagine communication between the Vikings and the Natives was strained at best."

"Of course, mostly because the Natives tended to begin conversations with poisonous arrows," Elijah chuckled, smiling fondly as he observed his fresh hand of cards, and she laughed. Elijah had told her that it had been nearly three years before his family and other colonists had truly trusted the fragile _peace_ brokered with the Natives. "Mother created a spell to understand the foreign tongue of the Natives, eventually we learned – my younger siblings, Lagertha and Isak, they picked up the Natives' language very swiftly; Willem, Niklaus, Rebekah and Henrik grew up bilingual, by the time Henrik was born our links with the tribe were so strong… When we returned across the open seas, we discovered just how much our language had altered through proximity with the Natives, and it was a struggle at first. But we learned how to adapt, and quickly, when it meant our survival."

"I imagine your emigration from Viking Denmark to the untouched lands of the Natives was a very different experience from Amerigo Vespucci and Christopher Columbus'," Giulia said thoughtfully. "In the Middle Ages the culture of Europe was not actually so far removed from the Natives'."

"In many ways we were remarkably similar," Elijah said. "Our farming techniques were far superior, though that is not saying much. We all worshiped at Nature's altar. We engaged in feudal land-disputes. We had the shield-wall, but the Natives had their own honoured war-tactics. Slaves were taken from defeated tribes, corporal punishment was the norm, the sense of community and responsibility for each other was richly woven into the fabric of everything we did. After the initial ambushes, Mother strode into their camp one morning and sat down to talk with their shaman." His features illuminated with a smile, chuckling softly. "They exchanged stories – and spells. Their mutual curiosity in each other's magic was the first link that eventually drew our two communities together."

"Why did your mother and father choose to risk the ocean?" Giulia asked. "I know you said you lost a sister, but you could have _all_ died trying to cross the Atlantic. I'm shocked you didn't."

"Mother harnessed the seas to protect us," Elijah said, with a strained smile. Giulia set her cards down.

"What poor slave was the doomed Iphigeneia?" she asked succinctly, placing a card down with a smirk as Elijah let out a soft growl, scowling at his cards. "So, why cross the Atlantic?"

Elijah glanced over the top of his cards, reaching for the crystal tumbler sparkling with amber liquid, a lovely bourbon Elijah had brought to the house when he had moved his things in. "It was customary on summer raids to take slaves as well as treasure," he sighed. "Younger was better, and strong. A couple of years before Freya's death during the plague, Father brought home one particular young-man, barely out of his teens – Father was impressed by him; he had apparently fought several of Father's warriors, protecting women in a village they had raided. Father valued the honour and courage of his actions, spared his life… Father had him train with us, Finn and me. He was free, not a slave as the others were – he joined Father in the shield-wall the next summer. In the light of the full-moon after his first ambush, Father saw him transform into a beast with his own eyes."

" _Fenrir_ ," Giulia said, smiling. She couldn't imagine the reaction of Elijah's fierce Viking father, seeing a man turn into a _wolf_ ; Vikings had feared the coming of Ragnarök, the end of the world, when Fenrir, the monstrous wolf-son of the god of chaos, Loki, would kill the allfather, Odin. "Did your father search for a _Gleipnir_ among the looted treasure – don't laugh if I butchered the pronunciation." Elijah gave her a charming smile, eyes glinting.

"No, he found no Gleipnir. However, Mother fashioned one for him," he said, with an ironic smile.

"She was there?"

"According to my father, before they left for the raids Mother had presented him with a ring, and instruction in the form of a poem he did not understand until Rollo changed before his eyes," Elijah said softly. "This ring Father gave to Rollo; it protected him from the moon's influence."

"Similar to a daylight-ring for vampires," Giulia said thoughtfully, intrigued, mind churning with the implications. Elijah nodded.

"Father sought to harness Rollo's impossible strength; after the plague took our Freya, Mother wished to find more of his kind," Elijah sighed. "Men immune to plagues, who healed from any injury. It was her belief that around such people, our own would be safe from disease. With Mother's ring on his finger, Rollo never had to transform unless he desired to… When we landed here, the Natives scented instantly what he was. And he scented them. He had never met another of his kind before… Over the years, Rollo became intrinsic in the peacekeeping between our colony and the Natives; he married a woman of their tribe and fathered children by her."

"What was he like, Rollo?"

" _Enigmatic_ ," Elijah said, with a pained smile. "You would have considered him _very_ handsome. Golden-haired, with good white teeth, broad high cheekbones and eyes bluer than sapphires. All the women admired him – and _he_ loved _them_. He was a favourite of my mother's; he was supernatural, just as she was. It bonded them, and he was loyal to her for his ring, for the release from his transformations… I believe Rollo would have done anything for her, certainly he loved her." Giulia glanced at him, as he frowned introspectively.

"You suspected him of something?" she mused, observing his expression. He gave her a subtle smile, the one he gave her when he was surprised she was so succinct.

"After Freya's death, the Father I remembered was gone," he sighed. "Mother's husband, too, she could barely recognise. He turned cold towards her, I think Mother felt he blamed her for not keeping Freya alive, with all her magic – she had sacrificed a slave in Freya's place to keep her alive, resorted to the darker magics she had never dared touch before, but even this did not work… While Father prepared to sail across the oceans, and then oversaw the expansion of our colony once we had made berth here, Mother and Rollo forged ties with the Native werewolf-tribe… Willem was born, five months after we arrived, but Father continued to show little interest in my mother. He raged, or fell into a deep depression that could only be broken by mother's herbs…after his rages, he was gentle with her – this, I believe, Niklaus saw too often, remembered it, repeated such behaviour with Rebekah. The discipline my father had raised me with had devolved into abuse; Mother used her magic, her herbs and small magical amulets, to alter his behaviour. After Niklaus was born, suddenly Father showed interest in her again, was kinder to her, though he was by no means the man he had once been."

"What happened to Rollo?"

"He married a Native, settled lands between the tribe and our colony," Elijah said softly, his eyes becoming faraway and sad. "After we turned into vampires, during the war that followed, Rollo and most of his family were brutalised." Giulia let out a breath, shaking her head. Reading between the lines, Giulia guessed she had come to the same conclusion that Giulia had; that his mother had had an affair with Rollo. "Several of my siblings suspected our father…"

"But you don't?" Giulia said quietly, eyes narrowing as she watched him.

"Father had a temper but he had never been needlessly cruel," he said. "Mother…was his entire world, and he knew he had abandoned her at a time in their lives when it had been hardest… Despite Freya's death, he had always wished for Mother's happiness…"

"Do you think he knew, that she had taken a lover?" Giulia asked, dealing another hand of cards.

"Possibly he had even encouraged Rollo," Elijah said, and Giulia's eyebrows flew up. He chuckled softly. "Father was earl for a reason. What he could not do himself, he had the talent of knowing exactly who could. Encouraged them, built up their confidence, strengthened their skill by his faith in it, even when people second-guessed themselves… And he knew he was not the man he should have been after Freya's death."

"I'm surprised," Giulia confessed. "I would never have imagined a Viking earl in the Middle-Ages ever being happy to be undermined by a woman, even if she was a powerful witch who could melt his bits off." She surprised a laugh from Elijah, and he chuckled, before sighing and pulling a face as she set several cards down.

"Father was always very happy to be undermined by my mother," he said softly, his eyes glowing as he gazed at Giulia. "A trait I must say I have inherited… We both crave and admire powerful women, are quite happy to be ensnared by them when they appreciate us in turn." Blushing slightly as she smiled at him, Giulia picked up a card, and frowned.

"I can't imagine, even given the situation, that your father would have been happy that your mother bore another man's child," Giulia said quietly. "Even if only the three of them knew."

"My parents' relationship was…very fluid," Elijah said softly. "You know enough of Viking culture to know women had a position of much greater respect and power in the Nordic lands during the Middle-Ages. They held property and could divorce; between my parents, there was always a deep mutual-respect and admiration. Their love flowed and ebbed, it changed its form, growing and receding with the seasons – but never was their loyalty to each other ever shaken; they knew how to make each other happy. Often Mother invited slave-girls who caught Father's eye into their bed."

"Your mother sounds clever," Giulia smirked.

"Oh, she was," Elijah said quietly, eyeing his cards. "Father was the hand that wielded the sword – Mother was the mind that guided it. She and Father both were strategists, they were leaders; they acted on behalf of communities who turned to them for leadership, and they did not disappoint."

"How did they get there?" Giulia wondered.

"Together," Elijah smiled warmly. "They were a team. They respected each other, earned everything they gained, they fought for their family. Father was not always earl; his family were farmers. But he was strong and clever, and Mother was a talented healer. They were both people of vision. And they wanted _everything_ for their family."

"When you've mentioned your father before, you used the present-tense…" she said softly, and she gave him an inquiring look. " _Him_ , as well?" Elijah glanced up.

"Mother was the only one who did not turn," Elijah said quietly, arranging his cards. "She did this to us, after Henrik's death." The way Elijah phrased things was always meticulous; 'did this _to_ us' as if it had not been their choice. Elijah had yet to tell her about the night his family had turned into vampires; she suspected it might be a conversation she would be waiting a _very_ long time to have. Elijah sighed, gathering the cards in one sweep of his hand, tapping the deck sharply to align the cards together, and boxed them up. The game – and the conversation – was over. She had touched a nerve, after everything they had discussed – it was his _father_ that caused him to close off, shut her down.

His father was alive. Not only a brutal Viking earl but a _vampire_ over one-thousand years old. And for some reason, it was _he_ who made Elijah clam up. Not Rebekah's abuse at the hands of their brother; not Willem's disappearance into the mists of time; not Finn's imprisonment in a coffin, daggered through the heart with a silver blade; not even the enigmatic Lucrezia who made his heart skip a beat to this day – she had heard it. It was his _father_.

"What was Willem like?" Giulia asked curiously. Elijah had described all of his siblings, both as the vampires they had become, and the humans they had been – quiet Finn, nicknamed "the calm", earnest and loyal to a fault, still waters running very deep, gentle, clever and intuitive, exceptional with children, he and Elijah used to laugh so hard their stomachs ached for ours: if Finn was "the calm" his twin-sister Freya had been "the storm", fiery and provocative, magically gifted, quick to laugh, she had loved to tease them, learning how to use a shield, on the cusp of marriage to a man of their father's choosing when she had died: Lagertha was fierce, martial, exquisitely beautiful and fearless, a strong, fair-minded woman, a shield-maiden who worshipped Freyja and her Valkyrie, a leader also fiercely independent, she had earned and held the respect and admiration of everyone who knew her, devoted to honouring the goddess Freyja's martial aspect in her role as a shield-maiden after the loss of both her children and the miscarriage of an unborn baby. Isak, Giulia had heard of from Cara and Vera – a lover, more than a fighter; in his human life he had been magically powerful like his mother, creative, luxuriating in the simple things – to enjoy a full belly and a beautiful woman. Not idle but utterly relaxed, choosing what he was willing to fight for.

She had heard enough of Niklaus: Rebekah was stubborn, spoiled, the youngest daughter, refusing to pick up a shield, scorning Lagertha's lust for warfare. She had preferred fishing and collecting flowers and herbs for their mother, listening to stories of Kattegat, a land she had thought never to see with her own eyes, hopelessly infatuated with any male who showed her favour, and foolish with them, dragged back to the jarlshall at the age of thirteen by Finn, when he had caught her with her skirts around her waist, though he hadn't said a word to their parents about why Rebekah was red in the face... Henrik had been stubborn, hard-working and wise for his age; he had died at thirteen, still unable to grow a beard but devoted to learning swordsmanship and helping on Elijah and Finn's farm, a devoted friend and playmate of Elijah's children they had all looked up to – all except Gyda, nearly four years older than him.

Elijah struggled to talk about Gyda, as if the words choked him… His first of seven children, the last stillborn during complications of labour that had killed Elijah's wife, and Elijah's _only_ surviving child.

Giulia didn't push him on it, curious as she was; she remembered the paintings in the Connecticut mansion. He had mentioned that Gyda had been classically trained; that after New Orleans had burned in 1919, Elijah had heard rumours that Klaus had tracked her down in St Petersburg during the Revolution two years prior – he'd never breathed a word to Elijah, though Elijah had then remembered Klaus' extraordinary good mood when he had returned from 'the front', where he had "indulged in the best meal he'd had in decades".

But Elijah had mentioned Willem only in passing, a reference during their human lives, more involved with Elijah during their time in Marseille due to his friendship with Lucrezia. She had heard more about Willem from Billy in Manhattan, and _Damon_ , than Elijah could tell her; she would probably learn more of him from the biography on Lucrezia, Countess of Provence. For she was certain he was one and the same. The photograph in _Billy's Bar_ was the same face she had seen in Damon's few photos, and Billy had confirmed that the original Billy was the _Original_ Willem.

"As a human, Willem was…you would call him the life of the party. An extrovert," Elijah said softly, smiling sadly. "He was…magnetic. People were drawn to him, like the sun… He had our father's temper but worked constantly to temper his instincts to just _react_. He was…good-natured, _loyal_ , he favoured Lagertha above all the others. He loved best his farm, women. Oh, they loved him. He was strong, and kind, gentle with the vulnerable, and terrifying when what he valued was threatened – very skilled at warfare but too clever to engage in active conflict when there were other means to achieving the same end. He was more like Mother than Father, more cunning, in the best way possible. You'd like him." He gave her a fond smile. While Elijah often looked like a thundercloud while talking about Klaus, or Kol, with Willem his features remained gentle, affectionate. "After we turned, Willem…kept to himself. Of all of us he complained least but hated more what we had become, always fighting some internal struggle for control. He would disappear for great lengths of time, secretive, quiet, but glad to see us after. He was close to none of us but perhaps Gyda, whom he had always adored; Lucrezia was his fiercest friend and ally, they laughed like young children when they were together."

"So Finn and Willem," Giulia smiled. "They were her favourites?"

"We were with Lucrezia for over forty years," Elijah chuckled softly. "Initially she favoured Lagertha, they were so alike. There was a _deep_ feeling of mutual admiration and respect between them – which left out Rebekah, and that she could not stand. Gyda…she encouraged and protected, drawing her back out of her shell where I could not…could not reach her. Gyda grew under her influence. Isak and Lucrezia, they did not get along well in the beginning, two dominant personalities – and he made the mistake of attempting to seduce her ward."

"Her ward? Oh. There was a young girl with her," Giulia mused, reflecting on what she had read in the biography. She had only read the introduction to chapter one, but she knew a twelve-year-old girl had accompanied Lucrezia from Florence on her marriage to the count. "What was her name again?"

" _Sancia_ ," Elijah said fondly, a small smile on his lips. "She was _very_ young when she arrived in Marseille, still a child really – and a darling. Large hazel eyes and sugary blonde hair that was almost like pale champagne, very fair skin. She grew more exquisite as the years passed. This, of course, made Lucrezia deeply protective of her as interest in Sancia grew. Sancia, now, she may have been more Lucrezia's favourite than any of us – except…me."

"I wondered when we'd get there," Giulia smiled. "The others all adored her, but what about you?"

Elijah's eyes were sad, guarded, as he sighed and flicked his eyes over her face. He said simply, "She is mine, I am hers."

Again, that careful choice of words; _is_. Not _was_. Not _used to be_.

Whoever Lucrezia had been, in a thousand years Elijah had never recovered from her loss.

That would have been quite a daunting revelation, had Giulia not already known any deep emotional attachment with Elijah was futile. She wasn't going to sit out on her life to be with him, when he could offer her so little – she wasn't going to turn into a vampire just to have a chance at being with him, either – especially considering the fates of all his other ex-girlfriends. Were they _exes_ if they had been murdered by his brother? In her mind, Elijah was an eternal widower, forever bereft of his lovers.

Over his interminable life, Elijah had stopped letting people in: though Elijah had never been intimate with her, Katerina Petrova's escape had marked the moment when Niklaus started to use Elijah's lovers to punish him, had used them to manipulate Elijah's behaviour, perhaps guessing that rather than risk their lives, Elijah would prefer to spend an eternity alone. Giulia believed Niklaus would rather have Elijah cleaning up _his_ messes, than making any of his own. Elijah had allowed himself moments of _companionship_ , but had never, not since Lucrezia's disappearance in 1043AD, allowed anyone in – his grief at her loss transforming over centuries into the dread of the inevitable, Niklaus using the people Elijah grew close to, to punish him with their deaths, their mutilation, physical torture and psychological manipulation. Elijah did not let them touch him.

By 1820, when his family had lived on a grand, sprawling plantation in New Orleans, Elijah had taken up with a wise, young girl, the free daughter of a slave and a wealthy French émigré, and a witch; when he had found her dead in her own bath a year later, following rumours Niklaus had spread about black-magic being the cause of the mutilations plaguing the city, Elijah had sat with his head in his hands beside her body. Quiet, perfectly calm, internalising his grief, his shame at not protecting her well enough, the humiliation of being treated so horrifically by his youngest-brother, and the strange, hollow _relief_ he had felt, that the inevitable he had been expecting had finally happened. He could breathe again, and not have to worry. Until the next time…and he vowed there would not be one.

Elijah allowed others to get close, but he did not let them in. Never close enough that their deaths would touch him. Giulia had guessed that very early on, realised that _he_ knew anything between them was rash, deadly and _temporary_. Giulia wasn't going to worry too much about the _future_ of their relationship when both of them knew there was only the slimmest chance the outcome could be any different to what Elijah had experienced again and again, until he had started making the conscious decisions _not_ to become emotionally invested in his relationships with women.

Giulia suspected Elijah would bring about Ragnarök to discover Lucrezia's fate; but Giulia was not her.

She just wanted to enjoy Elijah for as long as she had him. Until Klaus reared his ugly head, they could indulge in whatever intimacy they wanted. As soon as Elijah's brother entered the game, everything would change. Giulia dwelled on Niklaus – _Klaus_ as he called himself – for a little while, on the siblings and the daughter Elijah had been without for _centuries_. On the one who had disappeared into the mists of time.

"Did Willem just disappear?" she asked, a little while later.

"Willem again?"

"I'm curious. Out of all your siblings, he's the one you talk about least," Giulia said fairly.

"I know too little of his life to talk about it," Elijah sighed. "After we were flushed from Marseille, he vanished into the mists. The rest of us went one way; before we realised he was gone, it was too late to turn back…for centuries none of us heard any word, not even a whisper, of his existence…we did not know if he was alive or dead, not until I moved to Manhattan and bumped into him by chance on the street."

"That must have been quite a shock," Giulia smiled.

"We did not recognise each other," Elijah smiled sadly. He sighed, shaking his head. "It had been nine centuries since we saw one another. But still – we embraced as brothers. Arranged to meet for a drink to… _catch_ _up_ …"

"What happened?"

"Willem never appeared," Elijah said softly, his eyes lowering as he clenched his jaw. "He had fled. Fled the city, after realising I lived there… He had fled at the sight of me." Giulia moved closer to Elijah, realising…he was _hurt_.

For whatever reason Willem had disappeared, he had _hurt_ Elijah.

After a thousand years, meeting his brother by chance – the first time he had seen Willem since the 'golden days' of his life – he had been stood up, made to realise his brother had _fled_ him.

Elijah was not a man who wore his heart on his sleeve but their intimacy over the last few weeks had given Giulia an insight into the subtle tells, the tiny indications of enormous emotional upheaval going on within; nearly forty years on, Elijah was still _hurt_.

Sitting behind him on the bed, legs either side of his hips, she cuddled his waist from behind, kissing his neck before tucking her head down, hugging him tight.

For whatever reason, Willem had _fled_ New York City after realising Elijah was there.

Willem Mikaelson had secrets. He had kept out of the Originals' crosshairs for _nine_ _centuries_. And he was absolutely a person Giulia wanted to meet. Because, if what she suspected was correct, he held the answers to a lot of their prayers. And that was probably why he had kept his distance.

She stayed up late while Elijah went to bed, emotionally drained by their talk. But she stayed, working, and writing in her diary. She was cataloguing everything, her ideas, her research, the 'teen drama' going on in her life, Elijah. For posterity, more than anything. She doubted future generations of Salvatores would read it, because she was becoming rather resigned to the fact that _children_ were most likely not in the cards for her – no matter what Caroline said about adoption. No-one was going to give _her_ their kid!

Maybe one day Caroline would read it and be staggered, long after she was gone, by the effort Giulia had put in to protect everyone. She knew what people thought of her. And they were wrong – she was happy to prove that to them, flipping them the bird from the grave as they realised just who she had been all along.

Perhaps her mentality was becoming a little too fatalistic, but given everything she knew was coming over the horizon, she couldn't be blamed for making contingencies. She picked up her phone, after stretching her fingers, taking a break from writing, and sent a text to Slater:

 _You know you said you can find out anything about anyone with a little research? I've got a challenge for you… - GS_

 _What_?

 _Have you ever heard of Willem_?

* * *

 **A.N.** : The plot thickens. I enjoyed writing this chapter about Elijah's family – I know 'enjoy' isn't the right word for Klaus' behaviour toward Rebekah, but I thought it actually really _works_ with Klaus' personality, his absolute control over Rebekah's life – she is _his_ ; he'll do what he likes with her.


	19. Compulsion

**A.N.** : I hope you all like the ending of this chapter.

* * *

 **Dangerous Beauty**

 _19_

 _Compulsion_

* * *

"You're giving me jewellery?" Tyler gave her a look, but Giulia rolled her eyes, grabbing his wrist so she could clasp the braided leather cord around it, looping it under his watch-strap to ensure it wouldn't fall off if the clasp snagged on something.

"Don't worry, I'm not asking you to go steady or anything?" she chuckled, and he smiled easily. Since his dad's death, and a few workout sessions with Mason before he had taken off, her and Tyler's relationship had reached a sort of ease that harkened back to the days before Vicki. When they had been together, not in love but _friends_ , drawn in by the excitement of their first sexual relationship, affectionate and _themselves_ , in a way they rarely could be with anyone else. Bad though things had sometimes been between them, Tyler an awful little shit and Giulia not bothering to stand up for herself, they had also laughed so hard their stomachs hurt, crying, they had teased each other, been playful and tactile, physically affectionate, Tyler had let go of the frustration and aggression pent up inside, only stoked by his father's abuse with no healthy outlet; they'd been… _friends_. Peyton and Nathan on their good days.

Now they were returning to that same friendliness, the ease. It had been a long few months not speaking to each other. Giulia didn't mind admitting she had missed him. Tyler was one of her oldest friends, her first boyfriend, the first boy she had had sex with (and a lot of it), the person with whom she could indulge in the more tomboyish aspects of her personality. Jogging together, wrestling playfully on the sofa, watching the stupid movies like _Stepbrothers_ that made Tyler cry with giggles, venting about the girls… It had occurred to Giulia more times than one that her and Tyler's relationship had been more friends-with-benefits than anything, with the emphasis on the benefits aspect becoming stronger the closer they had come to Giulia dumping him for sleeping around on her.

"Okay, so why the surprise gift?" Tyler asked, as they paused to snack at the catering spread Mrs Lockwood had arranged for the volunteers helping set up the masquerade fundraiser. Potato-chips, fat sandwiches, fruit-cups and juice-pouches, the sun beating down, relaxing after a morning's hard work decorating, getting the Lockwood mansion in prime condition for the annual Masquerade Ball. She had been helping lay the harlequin dance-floor under a huge open tent, chandeliers everywhere, gold and red and purple the colour-scheme.

"Mason," Giulia said, glancing at him, squinting in the sun; she rearranged her sunglasses over her eyes, glad of her plain black cap, which she wore backwards to protect the back of her neck, the sun beating down on them. Tyler frowned at her.

"You know?" he asked, and Giulia nodded. It was better to say she had heard from Mason than explain everything. She wasn't going to delve into the world of the supernatural too much; ignorance truly was bliss, and if she could keep as many people out of it as she could, she would. It was necessary for Liz to know, too intrinsically linked with everything already. Jenna, too. And even though she knew, Meredith was detached enough from everything, a satellite in the atmosphere of the supernatural world but not truly part of it, that she was protected. But Matt and Tyler? She wanted to do what she could to help Tyler, make sure he didn't trigger his curse; she didn't want that for him, even though she didn't know the full implications. What Mason had hinted at was enough.

They had all been back at school, at work, for a week. The sun continued to beat down, mocking them as it shone through the windows at school, blinding her when she traipsed out of lecture-theatres, making everyone fidgety, anxious to get back out into the sun they had been spoiled with the last few weeks. Today was the first time anyone might have had the opportunity to enjoy the swimming-hole, a free Saturday after the first gruelling week back after a long break. Giulia had gone back to her new routine, dashing out of MFHS to race to Richmond and her classes, now trying harder than ever to devote as much time as she could to every single one of her projects, not to mention her _friends_.

Caroline was still adjusting to her mother _knowing_ , afraid _Liz_ was okay; he'd gotten to 1865 in his recap of Ripper-victims. He and Elena were still broken-up, despite Katherine not having made a peep in nearly two weeks; Elena had told him she wanted to wake up in the morning and know the people she cared about were safe. So, according to Caroline, she was turning into a soulless zombie, moping around school, all sighs and watery eyes. No more disinterested in school than usual, but people had gotten used to Elena Gilbert, the crier. But, and this was according to Caroline again, Elena and Bonnie had made up. Elena had caught her up on everything that was going on; Bonnie had accused Elena of being on Caroline's "side", guilt-tripping Elena that "since Caroline turned, we've barely seen each other", and that "losing Caroline was bad enough, I didn't think I'd lose you, too."

Giulia agreed wholeheartedly with Bonnie, for once: it _did_ leave her the odd man out for not being on the Vampire Barbie bandwagon. For not _standing by her friend_. Bonnie continued to reject any responsibility for Caroline's fate, blaming Caroline for something that had been entirely out of her control; and Giulia continued to have absolutely no interest in being Bonnie's friend. She had outgrown the self-pitying, miserable little brat. Oh, Giulia would ensure she was protected, but she was now so far from being emotionally invested in Bonnie, and her days were so much lighter not having to worry about what kind of mood Bonnie would be in.

Things were changing. Friendships were shifting and reforming, bonds strengthening, ties being cut. Giulia was closer with Stefan while she helped him with his experiment, dosing him with the thimbleful of human blood every day with a piece of fruit and ten names. They had watched _Pulp Fiction_ together and afterward pushed the sofa and daybed out of the way in the Boarding House, putting on Stefan's old records to jive while Damon filmed them.

She often met Damon for lunch, or a smoothie in Richmond between classes – or a cocktail after her evening lectures; he'd joined her on the first social since classes had started back up at UV, masquerading as her older-brother. He'd even come to one of her dance-classes, enjoying the hell out of himself dancing the Charleston, the shim-sham and making jaws drop as they performed the lindy-hop he had taught her when she was twelve; they'd dragged Stefan along, and he'd filmed them in turn. Since he and Elena were _on a break_ , Damon had taken his baby-bro under his wing, keeping him distracted. The two of them were working on Giulia's _Beetle_ while she rode her bike around town. Although she hadn't invited him in, and he wouldn't ask, Damon had taken her to a couple of antiques places and design studios, looking for things for her house. He'd been impressed and supported her plans as she pitched an idea to Liz, who was executor of her father's will and caretaker of Giulia's estate until her eighteenth birthday, to buy up the land the Fells were getting rid of, as well as the land that had belonged to the late Ms Gibbons, whose home Giulia had burned to the ground after Damon had killed her, and they had killed the vampire nest that had taken Stefan hostage. The City was more than happy to sell it to a Founding Family, who would always protect the interests of the town, and small-businesses that flourished there while chains hijacked the rest of the country.

That was the propaganda, anyway, and Giulia held them to it – and with the vervain out of their systems thanks to "the heat-wave 'killing' the plants", it had been easy for Damon to compel the Fells (all but Meredith, whom Giulia had made dinner for one night and convinced her to agree to their plan) to lose all interest in the Council, to erase their animosity toward and fear of vampires, implanting in their minds Giulia's idea that Logan's death had made them realise that the risk of their involvement in the Council was too great.

Logan had been their golden-boy, and since his death the Fells had been slowly parting with land and possessions, downsizing – sticking it to the train-wreck cousins who had made the family's reputation a source of ridicule for the other Founding Families, with their DUIs, Mean Girl attitudes, awful taste in men, dropping out of college – one of them, to have a baby given up for adoption, the other, to whore her way around exotic islands with various older men – their aimless, airheaded behaviour.

So the Council was down one Founding Family; but Giulia was up a lot of property Damon had compelled the Fells to part with at a _very_ reasonable price. Carol had been asking Giulia what she planned to do with it – she knew Giulia too well to think Giulia would do as the Fells had done, hold on to the land just for the sake of owning it, but doing absolutely _nothing_ to increase its value – when Tyler had returned from an early-morning weight-lifting session at school, unwillingly recruited into helping set up.

"This should help with your _anger_ _issues_ ," Giulia said, touching the bracelet lightly, before reaching for her paper-plate loaded with lunch. Carol had promised fudge-bars if they finished their sandwiches first; they were Tyler's favourite. "Keep you from doing something irreparable."

"You mean like kill someone?" Tyler sighed, popping a huge potato-chip into his mouth whole, and crunching with relish.

"Exactly," Giulia yawned. Elijah had kept her up late again, waking her in the middle of the night by entering her. Something must have come to him while he slept, because it had been a little different. Toe-curlingly slow, _savouring_ , refusing to hurry the pace of his gentle, deep thrusts, their fingers interlocked, gazing into her eyes, refusing to look away, in a way that had heightened _everything_. Tyler gave her a sidelong look.

"So he told you?" he asked, and Giulia nodded, sipping from her juice-pouch. "You think it's all legit?"

"Absolutely," Giulia said, without hesitation. There was no point playing coy. He knew; she knew considerably _more_. "That bracelet is to protect you from triggering the curse. Mason wanted you to have it." She'd told Mason what she was doing for Tyler, via texts to his burner phone, the number saved to her phone under 'Playgirl': he was in full support of her idea, wishing he could've taken the same precautions. Through their texted conversations, Giulia had learned what a fair-minded, grounded man Mason was. What he had gone through, he hoped Tyler never had to; but if he did, Tyler would have the benefit of Mason's experience. Mason had done it all on his own, the first time.

Tyler frowned at the bracelet. "So _this_ will stop me from triggering the curse?"

"Hopefully," Giulia said, glancing at Tyler. "As long as you wear it all the time." Tyler shrugged.

"Cool. Thanks," he said, smiling at her. "So…I got you something, too. I got you…a high-five?"

"I'll take it," Giulia said, and she chuckled as they clapped palms.

"So, what've you been up to, anyway? I never know with you," Tyler said, and Giulia smiled privately, sipping her juice. "Caroline's been babbling about your road-trip. Should've seen the look on Matt's face, he was _totally_ bummed she'd be gone all summer." Giulia blinked.

"I hadn't even thought of that. I mean, I love Car but if she's gonna be moping about Matt _all summer_ – aw!" she chuckled, shaking her head. "Crap!" Tyler chuckled.

"Well, I could always come with you," he shrugged half-heartedly. "Maybe we could go meet up with Mason wherever he finds his feet."

"Ooh. Now _that_ is a titillating thought," Giulia grinned lecherously, and Tyler rolled his eyes, chuckling. Her lust for his uncle was not unknown to Tyler; they'd all gone for a run before Mason had disappeared, she'd teased that she was quite happy to try and keep up with the both of them. The view was _spectacular_. "Won't you have summer-training?" Tyler was on the football team, hopeful for a scholarship to a good school; with a scholarship, he wouldn't have been dependent on his dad and therefore, could have studied whatever he wanted without the threat of being cut off if he didn't do what he was told. But football was good for Tyler, too, it helped him work out a lot of his aggression and frustration, he got to hit people without any malice behind it, it gave him discipline, taught him how to rely on other people and to be responsible for others in turn, forcing him to be a team-player. Thinking about others had never been a natural instinct with Tyler.

"I guess," Tyler sighed, gazing into the distance with a small frown on his face. "Kinda different now… Mom wants me to college, no question, but she's chilled out a whole bunch about where she wants me to go, what I have to major in… She found Jeremy's sketches and thought they were mine, so I showed her my stuff."

"You did?" Giulia asked, surprised. Tyler's love of art was pretty much his dark secret.

"Yeah…it was weird. It was like…she was _upset_ when I showed her," he said thoughtfully. "Like…she had no idea I was any good at that stuff."

"You are. You've more technique than Jeremy – don't tell him I said that," Giulia said, and Tyler chuckled.

"He's just wackier; he's got that whole edgy, morbid thing going on," Tyler shrugged.

"He told me you two hung out," Giulia said, and chuckled. "You two are so similar it's no wonder you were at each other's throats over Vicki."

"What? Me and _Gilbert_?"

"You're both artistic, both fatherless young men, you're both _fiercely_ protective of what's yours," Giulia shrugged. "Only, he's not a dick." Tyler laughed.

"Yeah. Yeah, he's always had that goin' for him," he sighed. "Can't deny that."

"You know, you don't have to be a dick either," Giulia said. "I remember a lot of times when you were incredibly sweet to me."

"Well, that's because I loved you," Tyler said, with a fond smile. Giulia rolled her eyes, blushing slightly.

"You didn't love me," she disagreed with a smile.

"I did – I still do! I guess…y'know, we're not like _in_ love with each other," Tyler shrugged. "Tell you what, though, if being in love with you made me as whipped as Stefan is over Elena…" Giulia laughed.

"If I turned out as maudlin and depressed as Elena is right now, over you, I'd throw myself off a bridge," Giulia said, and Tyler grinned.

"See, that's why I love you; you've got your head on straight!" Tyler chuckled. He sighed. "What happened with us, anyway? We used to be good together."

"No, we weren't, not really. We just had sex a lot," Giulia said, shrugging, sucking the last droplet of juice from her pouch. "We were always better as friends."

"Still, at least we tried it," Tyler sighed. "No-one could call us pussies."

"They wouldn't dare!" Giulia chuckled, and Tyler grinned.

"So. You seein' someone?" Tyler asked, and Giulia laughed outright.

"That's direct." Tyler shrugged, smirking. "No, I'm not."

"Really? Huh. 'Cuz Mason said he could smell sex _all over you_ whenever he saw you."

"Mm," Giulia smirked; she was sure he had. Just as she'd sensed it on _him_ too. She had realised that she and Mason were mirrors of each other. The only difference between her situation with Elijah and his with Katherine was that Giulia knew exactly what Elijah was up to; Mason hadn't. "Well, I have been sleeping with someone." Tyler scoffed, rolling his eyes.

"Do I even wanna ask?" he sighed, giving her a look.

"Really, you don't," Giulia chuckled.

"I never know what the hell you're up to," Tyler mused. "What if you wind up in a ditch somewhere?"

"Just know insane orgasms led me there," Giulia said, smiling, and Tyler blushed. "What about you?"

"You wanna know about _my_ –?"

"Orgasms?" Giulia smiled blithely. "I love it when you blush! No, are _you_ seeing anyone?"

"Nah. Been kinda slow in that department," Tyler shrugged.

"With all those girls in bikinis, there wasn't one you got drunk enough?"

"Apparently not," Tyler sighed. "Guess it doesn't matter…"

"And why not?" Giulia asked curiously, frowning at his despondent look.

"Guess I'm just…thinking about the future," Tyler said, wincing slightly. "This…werewolf curse thing… I'd pass it on to my kids."

"Right," Giulia said softly.

"Guess I'm just wondering whether it's worth the risk," Tyler sighed. "Anyway… C'mon. My mom's probably worked herself up into a tizzy about the decorating. You always know how to calm her down." He grabbed her in a playful headlock, staggering back to the house, finding Mrs Lockwood issuing orders, corralling volunteers, and working herself up into a tizzy about the antique furniture being scratched by the rented candelabra and how much the rented glasses cost per breakage.

* * *

Hours later, Giulia hung up her phone, unbuckled her seatbelt. The boys had done an amazing job rebuilding the engine of her _Beetle_ – one-hundred years' experience tinkering with engines and a _lot_ of free time lately, they had had the car up and running in no time, and Giulia had spent one afternoon repainting the car with Stefan, who had bought the special paint. It was a deliciously succulent sapphire-blue that seemed to shimmer in the sun, and with the polished metal, her car looked almost brand-new; she'd had to tell the DMV she had changed the colour but it looked _glorious_ , glinting in the sun as she waited, sipping the remnants of the smallest _Jamba Juice_ they offered, fresh from a little _Sephora_ -indulgence with Caroline at the Grove Hill Mall to pick out final accessories for the masquerade. Caroline had been inspired by their decorating efforts, and had wanted an excuse to get Giulia alone to grill her about being so giggly with Tyler earlier. Conscious of the heat, she had tucked her little bag of cosmetics into the icebox in her trunk, fully stocked with donated bagged-B+, animal blood, 'Long Arizona' raspberry iced-tea and Caroline's favourite caramel Frappuccino bottled coffees, before driving back to Mystic Falls. She had dropped Caroline off, sent a few texts, and parked out by the Fell tomb, waiting.

She shoved her legs out of her car, just enjoying the warmth on her skin, the gentle activity of the woods, the birds, the sigh of the breeze through the trees, adjusting her sunglasses as she turned the page in _The Prince_. She had been inspired to reread Machiavelli. In next to no time, she heard the soft bristle of dry pine-needles being disturbed, and glanced up over the edge of her sunglasses. Squinting, Elijah was a dark slash in the glowing green-gold of the surrounding trees. He looked incongruous, and she sighed internally at the _Hugo Boss_ suit he wore. He wasn't likely to run into anyone out here, but if there was the slightest chance anyone _might_ catch a glimpse of him, Elijah buttoned himself up again. Only she got to see him with his top button undone, wearing _jeans_ – dark-wash, extremely expensive, fitted jeans that made his ass look insane, but denim nonetheless – and a thin cashmere sweater. But that was the relaxed Elijah lulling himself into a false sense of reality, that this was merely a vacation, fishing all day from the deck, sharing a glass of wine in the evening while they played cards or chess or fucked in the lake, on the piano, or in the shower.

Giulia was tempted to ask whether he was _trying_ to make walking impossible for her. Whatever the spell was on the tiny earring of hers, it worked; she had no bruising despite the power in his hips, although she felt it. God, did she still feel him.

"You repainted your car," he observed mildly.

"Caroline and I voted we'd paint the trailer blue, with silver fenders and wood details," Giulia smiled. "Figured the car needed to match." Elijah's lips twitched into a smile. Truth was her car had needed a fresh paint-job for decades.

"You didn't invite me here to admire your car. Although I hope the engine now looks as good as the exterior."

"Well, it's what's on the inside that counts," Giulia said, and Elijah made that masculine little thoughtful noise of his. "I let the boys work on it; it gave them a project they could _bond_ over. Paid them in bourbon for the labour."

"You seem to be spending more time with them," Elijah observed. Giulia nodded.

"It's different," she said quietly. "Something's changed." With Katherine's betrayal, Damon's love for her had turned into indifference; without his obsessive need to free or find her, he now had endless free-time to consider his way forward. Refusing to let his brother spiral without Elena, Damon was now playing the big-brother; he and Stefan were bonding, as much as they ever could with the century and a half of _issues_ between them. Without significant others, the brothers had turned to _her_. Damon had wanted 'games night' and they were the only ones with whom playing _Trivial Pursuit_ was entertaining for Giulia. They still drank too much, but it was a free, relaxed kind of atmosphere, whatever tension that had been stirred up by Katherine's ghost – and Elena's presence – evaporating away for the few short hours they spent together. It was odd, and unusual, and Giulia liked it. She _liked_ spending time with them, when it wasn't all doom-and-gloom, where there wasn't (to the best of their knowledge) a nefarious plan in motion against them, when it wasn't a frantic heart-stopping fight for survival. When the supernatural shit stayed at the threshold and they could just enjoy each other's company.

"Why did you ask me to meet you here?" Elijah asked, sidling over and casually taking her book from her, which she had closed in her lap. His lips curled in a smile as he read the title.

"I have a surprise for you," she said, with a breathless smile. His dark eyes swept from the twisted curls of the pretty Dutch braid winding from one ear over the other shoulder, to her sandal-clad toes, nails glittering hot-pink in the sun, taking his time to peruse in between. "Not _that_ kind of surprise." He let out a soft sigh of disappointment, but followed her with a curious half-smile, delighted, anticipating. She retrieved a bottle from the icebox and a sheet of binder-paper folded in half, and guided the way down into the ante-chamber of the sealed tomb. She pressed a finger to Elijah's lips, but indicated for him to lift the stone away from the entrance to the tomb. Making him wait out of sight with a clear view into the tomb-entrance, Giulia squatted down, uncapping the battered _Aquafina_ bottle, pouring a thimbleful of blood into the cap and setting it just outside the mystical barrier, she waited.

For a few minutes, there was nothing, but she smiled softly to herself as she heard a faint scuffling noise – someone walking with a labouring gait, as if their feet were too heavy to lift. The effects of starvation on Katerina Petrova were not flattering. Her hair fell in dank, rumpled curls covered in dust and ash around a face so pale and sunken, she might have physically aged sixty years, if not for her incongruously perky breasts. Dark eyes glittered hatefully from the wizened face, shining with something Giulia thought might be hope, transfixed on the tiny capful of blood that had drawn her out of the depths of the tomb more effectively than any coaxing or threats ever could.

She saw Giulia and launched herself headfirst, at full-strength, toward her; Giulia didn't even flinch, tilting her head to one side and grimacing in sympathy as Katherine was violently repulsed by Emily Bennett's magic – the spell she had created to keep Katherine safe within the tomb… The irony was delicious. Black veins flickering beneath reddened eyes full of the threat of a slow, torturous death, fangs sharpened, lips peeled back, hissing, she did look monstrous, fighting and flailing against the magical barrier that protected Giulia.

"Oh, Kitty. You have _not_ been keeping yourself up," Giulia sighed, tutting, and shook her head. "It's such a shame. I've brought you a visitor. Here…" She picked up the bottle-cap, dripping the blood back into the full water-bottle before capping it, tossing it gently into the tomb. Katherine latched onto it, not bothering to uncap the bottle; she sank her fangs into the plastic with a ferocity that could rival crocodiles. Giulia observed coolly, a tiny, arrogant little smile on her face, and she waited. Two seconds, and Katherine was crumpling the plastic bottle to her chin, trying to suck the last droplet – her body caught up, her starved senses reacting – and she retched, moaning, hacking a cough and bending at the waist.

"What the _hell_ kind of schwag blood did you just give me?" Katherine growled.

Giulia smiled. "Racoon." She hopped out of the way and chuckled as Katherine gave her a petulant look, throwing the crumpled water-bottle at her, then started to retch again.

"Why are you here?" Katherine growled, wiping her mouth on her arm. The blood, however distasteful it was to a vampire used to sipping from the vein of whichever lover she had suckered into her bed, had done the trick. Katherine was almost pretty again; her skin had tightened, softened, the olive tone rejuvenated richly. But Katherine hadn't been keeping herself up; her eye-makeup was smudged so she resembled her recent meal. Her fingernail-polish was chipped; her lips were chapped, and whenever she veered out of the shadow of the chamber, her skin started to blister. She gasped, ducking out of sight, and Giulia smiled, leaning against the stone, dangling a familiar blue pendant from her fingertips.

"I couldn't help myself, it was just such a darling antique," Giulia said, smiling viciously, as Katherine's eyes glittered from the shadows, watching the blue stone in its delicate Victorian silver setting, as it swayed like a pendulum from her fingers.

"You'll regret this," Katherine promised.

"Somehow I don't think so," Giulia mused. "Elijah, wouldn't you say?"

"My dear Katerina," Elijah said softly, and Giulia heard Katherine gasped. She seemed to freeze, eyes glued to the impeccable Elijah in his dark suit and chic sunglasses. He looked like freaking James Bond, especially with that tiny little smirk of delighted malevolence. "You do not seem to understand the implications of your predicament."

"Elijah…" she whispered, fear etched into her features.

"You have the good sense to be frightened, at the very least," Elijah said, observing Katherine almost disinterestedly. He then gave her a brilliant smile, shooting Giulia a sidelong look that was full of pride. "However did you ensnare such a vicious little Kat?"

"She thought I was a mouse," Giulia said softly, eyes on the starving vampire pinned by her fear of Elijah. She wondered how long it had been since Katherine had seen him last: It must have been the night she fled Klaus and the sacrifice.

"Imprisoned in the tomb created in her honour," Elijah said, with an ironic smile, peering into the gloom of the stone tomb.

"She's where she should have always been," Giulia said softly. "Desiccating in a tomb no vampire would ever enter because they can never leave…she's absolutely safe in here. Safe to suffer alone, in darkness, with no-one to come for her, no-one to know, or care." It was actually quite a devastating thought, but Giulia tucked it away, tilting her head as she observed Katherine, still cowering in the shadows, shivering away from Elijah's gaze as if it was a physical blow.

"How long have you kept this secret?" Elijah asked, a curious note in his voice.

"Long enough for the vervain she has been sipping for the last century and a half to leech from her system while she starved," Giulia said lightly, negligently handing him the folded piece of binder-paper. She had taken the time while allowing the vervain to leave Katherine's system, to compose something for Elijah.

He had told her Originals could compel both humans and other vampires. And their compulsion was understandably the strongest of any vampire alive. It was so strong that, provided the appropriate loopholes were closed, their compulsion outlasted even an Original's death by a mystical silver-dagger. Elijah took the paper, unfolding it with a curious frown, and he took the time to read it, to re-read it; she could practically see him absorbing every word she had so meticulously crafted. He was thinking through every implication, working out the loopholes, the insinuations, the benefits and the risks, plotting several moves ahead. Eventually, he gave Giulia a smile that was at once wicked and admiring. He curled his finger at Katherine.

"Come here, Katerina," he said gently, and she flinched, backing further into the stone wall, not daring to retreat further, her fear of him was that strong. Trapped inside the tomb, for a moment, Giulia had thought Katherine looked… _young_. Fear did that.

"I'll burn," Katherine whispered, eyeing the bright line of golden light cutting across the tomb entrance.

"I know," Elijah said softly. He focused on her face, and Katherine gasped softly, growing still. "You will stand in my shadow." A shiver passed over Katherine's face, the one show of resilience against Elijah's compulsion – then she was cowering, suddenly skinny and seventeen and afraid, chin tucked to her chest, trying to look anywhere but into Elijah's eyes. "Look at me, Katerina," he said, so gently it was terrifying.

There was a stubborn tilt to her chin as she raised her eyes, a display of bravado even, literally, in the shadow of her enemy.

Watching Elijah compel Katherine was oddly mesmerising. His voice was so gentle, so lulling, that even she started to be drawn in by it. Even though she had written the words herself, so carefully crafted, it was Elijah who strangely breathed life into them.

"If anyone tries to reach into your mind, by compulsion or magic, they will find no trace of my compulsion," Elijah said softly. "You will never suspect that you have been compelled. You will know only that you underestimated Giulia Salvatore when you attacked her, that she trapped you within this tomb in penance for your actions against her friends… Should you find yourself freed of the tomb, you will not seek vengeance against her, you will not manoeuvre to punish those you have acted against. While you are within this tomb and after you find yourself freed from it, you will do whatever Giulia Salvatore asks of you, and gladly, though you will not know why you want to help her, and you will never suspect that you have been compelled to do so. You will still voice your disapproval, still give your opinion on the matter and suggest alternative course of action, but ultimately you will help her. You will keep her secrets, and no-one who tries to enter your mind shall steal them from you. Should I die by a mystical silver-dagger this compulsion will only be strengthened. You will be bound to Giulia's will, giving her unquestioning loyalty."

Giulia stared at Elijah, unease curling in her stomach. He had veered from the script, and she didn't know how she felt about it.

"Now…you will not remember this," Elijah said calmly, and slinked out of sight, leaving Katherine's skin sizzling in the sun. Katherine blinked, coming out of a trance, and her lax features morphed into fury as she glowered at Giulia, darting out of the sunlight.

"What do you want?" she hissed. Giulia sighed, eyeing her.

"Just wanted to check in," Giulia said casually, reaching for some of the other things she had brought with her. She tossed a blood-bag at Katherine. "Here."

"More racoon?" Kathrine asked scathingly, though her eyes were fixated on the blood.

"No. A negative," Giulia said. Katherine needed no other incentive, and drained the blood-bag, dumping it negligently on the ashy dirt floor. "This is for you. Come here."

"Um. You stole my daylight pendant, Giulia. That golden glow you see in front of you, that's _daylight_. I'll burn." But, gritting her jaw, she moved into the light. Her skin started to hiss, steaming, and blisters started to grow on her face, her exposed arm. Giulia handed her a large vervain plant she had carried down with her after digging it out of the pot.

"Take this," she said, and Katherine gripped the plant by the soil-covered roots. "Find a patch of sunlight inside that tomb – I know there are cracks in the roof of the cavern – and plant it. You can keep taking vervain just in case."

"In case what?"

"In case Klaus finds you and frees you," Giulia said, looking her in the eye; a shiver passed over Katherine's face. Once Elijah had compelled Katherine to do what she wanted, Giulia wanted to provide Katherine with as much protection as she deserved. She wasn't unfeeling toward Katherine's predicament, self-inflicted as her lifestyle was, due to the choice she had made five centuries ago. But she and Elena were two sides to the same coin – Elena had people jumping in line to help her; Katherine had been doing everything on her own for centuries. She manipulated and strong-armed people into doing her bidding because there was no-one else. It was a heart-breaking thought, and explained so much about Katerina Petrova. She was so selfish because there was no-one else in the world who legitimately cared for her. Who would look out for her if not herself? "Are you enjoying yourself in there? Plenty of time to reflect on things."

"Yes," Katherine said sardonically. "You see, all I have now is time. Time to sit. And rot."

"Well, you wanted to stop running," Giulia said fairly. "Goodnight, Katherine. Sleep well."

"Who's in here with me?" Katherine called, as Giulia turned to go. Giulia smile to herself, taking the jacket Elijah handed her as he moved to lift the great stone barrier into place, leaving only six inches through which light could shine into the chamber beyond, giving no-one space to enter, sealing Katherine in, protecting any curious explorers from the vampires within. But giving Giulia access if she wanted to speak to Katherine.

Climbing up the stone staircase, Giulia rested against a large boulder, draping the jacket over the warm stone, arms crossed loosely over her chest, ankles crossed, idly watching Elijah. "I wrote Elena's name on that paper."

"And I am sure you had your reasons for doing so," Elijah said, eyes glinting as he smiled at her, prowling closer to grasp her hips in his hands, trapping her legs between his knees as he dipped his head to nuzzle her nose and give her kisses. "There would be an entertaining sort of retribution in Katerina being bound to Elena's will… However, you have the imagination to truly utilise such a bond."

"I'd rather earn someone's loyalty," Giulia said quietly. He smiled warmly.

"I know," he said softly, cradling her face in his hands, dipping his head for another kiss as he pushed his fingers through her hair. "Consider it…an insurance-policy." Giulia smiled softly. Katherine bound to her will for as long as Giulia was alive – there were countless possibilities, and the amusement-factor of having Katherine bound to Elena's will had been too good to pass up; she had considered making her subservient to Damon, just to see Katherine get her comeuppance for what she had put Damon through, knowing how Damon would take advantage of it once he figured it out. _He_ would figure out Elijah's compulsion, but Katherine never would.

Katherine would never realise she had had her independence stripped from her. That she had had her will had been bound to that of another.

Giulia had wanted to…to turn Katherine into a better version of herself, but nicely. Binding her to Elena's word was strategic; there was no way Elena wouldn't balk at the idea that someone else was enslaved to her will. She wouldn't abuse it, but she would probably ask Katherine to help her to do whatever was best for a lot of people – to protect them. Place the lives of others above Katherine's own survival. If Elena ever realised the connection, that was, but, well…Elena wasn't that clever.

Elijah frowned thoughtfully at her.

"Why did you write Elena's name?" he asked.

"Because she's not clever enough to figure out that Katherine would be bound to her," Giulia said, sighing softly. "And she wouldn't take advantage of the compulsion even if the boys figured it out for her."

"And why have me compel Katerina, why not just…take matters into your own hands?" Elijah asked. "The simplest course of action, ensuring your friends' safety, retribution for what she did to your relatives…to my family."

Giulia smiled at him, a little perplexed he truly had to ask her. Surely he knew why. She frowned, smiling at the same time. " _The game_ , Elijah. It would be such a waste to kill an enemy such as Katerina. I imagine she has made the last five-hundred years _exciting_ , at the very least… You can always kill your enemies – but you can't bring them back… Never do anything irreparable, if you can help it."

She had killed people – vampires. An entire tomb full of them. She had set them alight while they lay desiccated in the dark. Two Victorian vampires assimilating to modern life was one thing; twenty-seven vampires tearing through Mystic Falls on a vendetta fuelled by supernatural rage and hunger was not something she had wanted to clean up after. And only Anna had come for her mother. Whether anyone else had known the vampires were in the tomb, Giulia didn't know; but no-one else had come looking for them, no-one had sought revenge against her for their loved-ones' deaths. So if any vampire still living had lost someone in the fire in 1864, they either didn't know, didn't care, or had moved on. She had done right by her friends, their home. Her own conscience.

The vampires she had killed in the farmhouse owned by Ms Gibbons had been set on torturing Stefan for information on Katherine – they endangered everyone's lives, as soon as they had harvested what information on Katherine they could, possibly captured her, they would have let it be known there was a living doppelganger. They would have been…where she was now – only, they would have been in a worse position, with no time to prepare like Elijah's presence gave her.

They walked hand in hand back to her car, Elijah dangling his jacket over his shoulder, fingers intertwined casually with hers, just thinking. They reached her shining sapphire _Beetle_ , and, gentleman that he was, Elijah opened the driver's door for her. But he stopped her from sliding into the seat, drawing her in for a gentle kiss that was both sweet and fierce.

Because she understood. What was eternity without a little excitement?

* * *

 **A.N.** : Whaddaya think, tell me, tell me, tell me! This is where I start laughing evilly.


	20. Masquerade

**A.N.** : Hi everyone, this is my first attempt at updating through OneDrive and iPad as a dry-run..

* * *

 **Dangerous Beauty**

 _20_

 _Masquerade_

* * *

"Pictures!" Caroline crowed delightedly, and they all groaned.

"C'mon, Car, live in the moment," Giulia coaxed.

"I'll live in the moment once I've documented it," Caroline said blithely, drawing out her little purple camera. "Come on, we all look too hot not to take pictures, and I want evidence so in sixty years I can prove we didn't always drool. Now smile."

"Have you considered a career in the Army?" Giulia asked. "You give orders with more authority than a General."

"Thank you," Caroline smiled. "Elena, stop pouting! Your misery is self-inflicted, and you're bringing the party down."

"I'm sorry if my break-up with Stefan is affecting your party-spirit, Caroline. I didn't even want to come," Elena sighed. Giulia shot her a perplexed look, then glanced at Caroline for explanation. Caroline rolled her eyes slightly behind her beautiful, elaborate silver swan filigree mask, tied with an ice-blue ribbon around her head, and sighed, giving Giulia a look partially-concealed by her mask but saying it all; that she'd explain later. Giulia knew she had been out of the loop with classes in Richmond and her insatiable appetite for Elijah, but this was ridiculous – then again, Damon wasn't exactly one to sit gossiping on the phone catching her up on everything she'd missed in the last episode of The Real Mystic Falls.

"You can't sleep your way through your life, Elena," Caroline chided.

"Unless it's with a hot guy," Giulia amended, and Elena gave her a withering look, "and you dumped yours, ergo… Come on, grab some champagne and pull the stick out of your ass. You're running things for the rest of us." On a Debbie Downer scale, Elena was pushing a Bonnie Bennett.

"What is this, Gang-Up-on-Elena Night?" Matt asked, smiling easily. Well past due, Giulia thought, pulling a face.

"We just want to enjoy the party and make sure Elena does too," Caroline said fairly. "Even Bonnie's having a good time. I spent too long on your outfit and accessories to let you pout in the corner, Elena. Grab a guy and dance, forget about Stefan for one night!"

"Pretty hard," Bonnie said ominously, glaring across the room, simmering. "He's here…with Damon."

"Tone down the loathing, Bonnie," Giulia said coolly, taking a flute of champagne from a passing waiter.

"Why didn't you tell me they'd be here?" Elena rounded on her, her beautiful gold filigree butterfly mask flashing in the candlelight.

"Because…a. I didn't know you'd dumped Stefan, 2. I knew you wouldn't come if you knew they'd be making an appearance and d. – oh, look, we're already here!" Giulia smiled. Truth be told she wouldn't have minded one bit letting Elena and Bonnie stay home with an O.C. box-set and bad pizza; half the fun of parties like this was always getting ready with Caroline, listening to bad music, sneaking tequila from the bottle under her bed and just generally being seventeen-year-olds, and she was perfectly happy to stride out onto the dance-floor on her own while Caroline mauled Aimee for flirting with Matt as soon as she'd seen him in his suit. She knew why Stefan was at the party; and Damon would always come for the open bar and a chance to bask in the smug glow he got from everyone fawning over him.

"Plus, they're Founders," Caroline said, giving Elena a look. "Of course they'd be invited. And so what that Stefan's here? You called things off with him; he's the one who's supposed to be crying under the comforter listening to every sad song on his iPod on repeat and bingeing on ice-cream because you ruined his life, crushed his soul and made him give up on love. You're perfectly entitled to have a good time."

Giulia stared at Caroline incredulously. She didn't want to remind her, in front of everyone, how Caroline had handled manipulating Matt into dumping her by playing up her neuroses-fuelled territorial behaviour over Matt, clever enough to know her being a raging jealous bitch would only push Matt away – to Aimee, perhaps, but also to safety.

Elena was frowning across the room at Stefan, who was ordering drinks at the bar, looking handsome and shady in a Hugo Boss suit and nondescript black mask. "Stefan hates these sort of things, he only ever came to parties to make me happy."

"You see how whipped he is?" Giulia sighed, gesturing helplessly at Stefan as she shook her head. It was true, Stefan was whipped; but Stefan's presence had everything to do with his dread that Katherine might use the opportunity of the Masquerade Ball to cause mischief. Most likely with a body-count – Stefan would do anything to prevent Elena being among the dearly departed.

Giulia had kept it absolutely secret, only telling Elijah, about Katherine's entombment. The best way to get away with murder was to tell no-one. At worst, tell one person. Elijah could not be compelled, he could not be tortured by the pain of his loved-ones to reveal secrets – because his loved-ones were already in an interminable mystical coma – but he had proven he was clever enough to realise the benefits of compelling rather than outright punishing Katherine for past behaviour.

"Anyway, it's only Sober Stefan who doesn't like parties," Giulia mued. "Ripper Stefan – he revels in hedonism. Sort of a Dorian Gray."

"Who?"

Giulia sighed.

"He's probably just here to keep an eye on you," Giulia said honestly. Stefan wouldn't trust that Katherine wouldn't make a move; and Giulia didn't trust that the Wonder Twins super-duo wouldn't royally fuck things up if they knew Katherine was in the tomb. They were bound to do something ridiculous that made her bang her head on her granite kitchen-counter, thoroughly alarming Firenze and making Elijah arch an eyebrow as he glanced up from the piano. Elena stared at her, disconcerted and most likely very touched. Loathe as she was to admit it, Giulia had to say Elena actually looked quite pretty tonight. Of course, Caroline hadn't given any of them any option, the Masquerade was the one party of the year where they got to be completely OTT. It was the first Masquerade they were old enough to dress up, the first they were all single, and Caroline had wanted to party like Marie-Antoinette. Caroline looked glorious, hair piled up, a dainty Queen Victoria crown sparkling, her filigree mask flashing in the candlelight; Bonnie had received a mask at the door, unprepared; so the silver filigree harlequin design didn't match her earth-toned floral mini-dress. Elena's emerald dress was very flattering on her, her hair had been curled softly and pinned away from her face, and she had actually been forced into wearing a little more makeup than usual. It was odd, the correlation between Elena making an effort and Stefan no longer being her boyfriend. Giulia supposed that without the threat of the supernatural Elena had time to accessorise. She didn't just throw on the clean Henley on the top of the ironing pile.

"Why?" Caroline blurted, sounding almost annoyed.

"He's worried," Elena sighed, gazing so longingly across the room Giulia wondered how Stefan didn't feel the stroke against his cheek. "He thinks Katherine might do something."

"And ruin a good party?" Giulia tutted.

"Yeah, and come on, we haven't heard a peep from the Ghost of Girlfriends Past since Mason Lockwood left town," Caroline said imploringly. "You know, we should celebrate – you are not allowed to sulk tonight."

"I don't sulk."

"You sulk – you're a sulker!" Caroline exclaimed. "And tonight we're gonna dance and drink champagne and have an awesome time and not think about ex-boyfriends or their psycho ex-girlfriends. We are going to have fun."

"I love how she says that, and it sounds like a threat," Tyler chuckled to Matt. Caroline shot them a look, but continued to flash her camera, documenting their night. It was a Founders' party like any other; the difference was masks concealed their faces, allowing for easier access to the bar, and relative anonymity, shielding them from scathing looks of adults shaming their behaviour. With the stash Jeremy hadn't touched in months and Caroline's compulsion on the bartender they acquired enough contraband to spend a good hour in the privacy of the Mayor's study, standing in the private porch-balcony sharing a joint, passing around a swiped bottle of tequila, and clambering all over the leather sofa and armchairs to play a game of I Never – Spin-the-Bottle was vehemently rejected.

But it got them all suitably giggly and chilled-out, surprised by each other's openness, brought on by shots. Aimee and Sarah, whom Giulia had never had much to do with beyond Sarah being on the cheerleading squad, had joined them; they had hung out with Jeremy and Tyler before, and it looked like bad history might repeat itself as Sarah flitted between Tyler and Jeremy. The only difference was, though Sarah couldn't hold her drink any better than Vicki could, Sarah was actually a pretty decent enough girl. She always stretched her hamstrings, her braids were always perfect, her mother was really fun and bought them all Jamba Juice, and she usually had an encouraging thing to say that boosted someone's confidence. Jeremy blushed at her attention, and over shots Giulia snuck him, he admitted he'd been texting Ashlyn all day, and had wanted nothing more than to stay home chatting with her, planning his summer in New York City – permission from Jenna to attend the Academy of Art programme pending.

Every time Elena's dark eyes narrowed disapprovingly at Jeremy, Giulia shot her a jaunty smile; it was a party. And Giulia hated when Elena tried to be the mom, cutting Jeremy off or not condoning his behaviour, generally putting a damper on the great atmosphere. They were having fun. Being irresponsible teenagers – for a lot of them, for the first time in months, forgetting the awful stuff going on beyond that door. Matt seemed to be getting into it, more than he ever normally did; he'd been going through it just as the rest of them had, only unlike the rest of Matt was on his own. Maybe he had just decided that enough was enough, and he needed to let loose… But Giulia worried he'd regret it, he was too conscientious to act out the way his mother and sister were known for – he wasn't that guy. But he was laughing and flirting with Aimee, and Giulia couldn't remember when she'd seen Matt this…happy.

They soaked up some of the booze, feeding the beast that was the Munchies, at the hot buffet laid out for everyone, and sobered up a little before heading out to the dance-floor. Caroline's camera flashed continuously, and they watched the fire-eater, the contortionists, they danced and sipped champagne, and a familiar voice made her blink away the delicious haze of champagne-delight as a hand was offered to her.

"May I have this dance?" a gentle voice asked politely, and Giulia didn't hesitate. She placed her hand in the proffered palm and followed Elijah to the dance-floor, feeling light as air as they took a position among swaying couples, the familiar weight of his arm around her waist, keeping her close; this dance-floor was not meant for sweeping Viennese waltzes, for fiery, domineering paso dobles. But they were pressed together, and Giulia smiled almost shyly into the dark eyes shadowed by a nondescript black leather mask, the hand-tooled swirls embossed in the leather flickering in the warm candlelight that flattered every angle and made the natural highlights in his hair shine.

"You look delightful," Elijah said softly, leading a gentle dance through the crowd. Giulia smiled bashfully.

"You said that earlier," she said softly, blushing, flattered but a little embarrassed. She didn't like things tied over her face; as a compromise to Caroline, she had created a beguiling, distracting 'mask' out of makeup. Chocolat had called the finished look 'Techno Butterfly'; before heading over to Caroline's to finish getting ready, Giulia had used silvers, glacial lavenders and warm lilac eye-shadows to create exaggerated winged-eyes, using tiny diamanté crystals in palest pea-greens, silvers and orange-flashing coppery pinks on her eyelids and temples to create a mask she didn't have to tie on, or worry about holding in place all night. She had worn the beautiful plain black Moschino dress Caroline had compelled for her during their Lost Weekend, and while at Caroline's, had styled her hair in soft, glamorous 1920s waves around her shoulders. It had taken her nearly all afternoon and Elijah had been at the house smiling to himself, reading, while she sighed and grumbled and tried to figure out how to use the damned cosmetic glue.

"And I mean it still," Elijah said softly. She wasn't surprised Elijah was here; with so many guests it was no wonder he had been given an invitation into the house. Now he had access to the interim Mayor. They danced, slow and relaxed, murmuring to each other, the noise concealing their conversation, just…flirting. Talking. Enjoying an illicit night of dancing with each other, sharing kisses, in full view of everyone, absolutely – relatively – anonymous. It was wonderful, and she couldn't help sharing a smirk with Elijah, the only two who knew the secret. They danced for over an hour, and Elijah procured two flutes of Prosecco when they sidled off the dance-floor; Giulia sipped, smiling, feeling deliciously bright and relaxed, happy.

She caught his eye, and they exchanged a breathless grin, before slipping through the crowd. The door clicked locked and Giulia groaned as Elijah lifted the hem of her dress and entered her in one swift push, sharing a breathless, dainty kiss as he filled her to the hilt. There was that familiar second's pause of mingled disbelief and savouring relief, that they were here again, as Elijah nuzzled her nose affectionately, placing a tender, searing kiss against her lips. In her high heels, she pushed her hands down the back of his dress-pants, an arm looped around her shoulders drawing her close for a deep, possessive kiss, lost in the sensation of his almost frantic thrusts, moans muffled against his lips. He cut off her yell before it could bubble up, biting her lip as he made her orgasm violently, working her G-spot with a smug smile half-concealed by his mask as she raked her fingernails across his ass, writhing and panting, annoyed and on fire, until he groaned softly against her lips, coming. She sagged in his arms, relieved, floating, and smiled breathlessly.

Elijah kissed her tenderly, both of them moaning softly as he withdrew from her; his hands seemed steady as he smoothed her dress down her thighs. Hers weren't, as she zipped him up, clasping his belt-buckle. He dove in for another searing kiss, catching her off-guard, and she sighed into it as he held her close. Releasing her, he flicked her nose affectionately with his fingertip, before unlocking the door. He gestured for her to exit, and she smiled, sauntering out of the little room, down the corridor; he intertwined his fingers with hers as they walked, but Elijah paused, even with the mask she could tell he was frowning, and despite the blood pumping deliciously through her body, drunk on the high from her orgasm, she shivered.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"Something is happening," he said softly. "Your friends in the study…"

That was all she needed: Giulia had already forgotten their exquisite little rendezvous, striding to the Mayor's study. She slipped into the room and had luckily just shut the door behind her when Caroline smacked a belligerent Matt. He dropped to the ground like a rock at Giulia's feet, blood already pooling from his nostrils, and everyone in the room seemed to hold their breath, the tension almost glacial. Giulia glanced from Caroline to Matt to Tyler, who was stood wild-eyed and blinking dazedly, staring at his friend on the floor at Giulia's feet.

"Matt?" Caroline said softly, concern flickering across her face, and Giulia glanced at Jeremy, his stunned, confused expression evident, at Sarah dandling on his knee in her pretty dress, looking quite drunk, quietened by the sight of Matt on the floor and whatever had been going on, whatever Elijah had heard – what Giulia hadn't been a part of because she'd been fucking in the bathroom with her secret thousand-year-old Viking vampire boy-toy.

"What's going on?" she asked, glancing at Jeremy as Caroline knelt by Matt's side, her expression so gentle. In the corner of her eye she was aware of Tyler, looking concerned and bewildered; of Sarah, rising from Jeremy's knee, lingering by the desk.

"Matt?" Caroline said softly, gently trying to rouse him. She glanced up at Giulia, who squatted down as elegantly as she could in her dress, trying not to topple over. Caroline gave her an odd look, eyeing her, before turning back to Matt; remembering what Tyler had said to her the other day, she imagined Caroline could smell sex on her and couldn't figure out why.

"How did you–?" Tyler asked, gasping. His clothes were rumpled, Matt's too; there was the scent of tequila in the air, and a damp patch on the desk. Matt and Tyler had been fighting – something none of them had seen since Tyler admittedly had made out with Matt's mom.

"I think he'll be okay," Giulia said, checking Matt's pulse. It was steady; the blood from his nose was most likely just from a bloody-nose. Being clobbered by a vampire, even Vampire Barbie, would do that to a person.

"Matt failed…" a soft voice said distractedly. "If Matt fails…I can't."

"Look out - !"

"Argh!"

There was a loud crunch, and Sarah fell to the antique carpet with a decisive thunk.

They were all a heartbeat too late.

Caroline had shot to her feet with unearthly grace; Jeremy had lurched from his armchair, eyes wide; Giulia was half-sprawled across the floor on her hands and knees, reaching for Sarah, as Tyler, hunched over and grimacing, pulled a bloody letter-opener from his pectoral, gasping in shock.

Before they had even realised what was happening, it was over. They all froze, in shock, minds catching up with their senses.

"No, no, no! C'mon, wake up!" Tyler gasped shakily, his hand trembling as he pressed it over his shoulder, the bloody knife dropped to the floor. "Sarah! Sarah, open your eyes, wake up!" Giulia stared at Tyler as he crouched over Sarah, trying to shake her awake. Her stomach evaporated unpleasantly, leaving the heart-breaking realisation behind… "This can't happen – this can't happen… This can't be happening – Sarah. Get up. Sarah! Open your eyes!" Giulia glanced at Caroline, whose expression leached of everything but deep compassion and regret as she caught Giulia's eye. They both knew what this meant – they all did. Her, Caroline, Jeremy, and Tyler. Tyler knew what this meant.

"This can't – this can't be happening!" Tyler panted, jumping to his feet, striding away, shoving his hands through his hair, panicked. White-faced, he started to pace sketchily. Giulia glanced at Caroline, and they approached Sarah. Their friend on the cheerleading squad, with her perfect braids and fun mom and her crush on Jeremy Gilbert. It was the first time Giulia had hesitated, but she had to force herself to touch her fingers to Sarah's neck, trying to find a pulse; she glanced at Caroline, whose curls twitched as she gave a minute shake of the head. She couldn't hear a pulse; Giulia couldn't feel one.

Sarah was dead.

Accidentally, Tyler had killed her.

And as they exchanged another look, Tyler gave a strained groan of pain, falling to his knees. He punched the floor, grunting.

"Tyler?" Caroline said quietly. "Tyler, what's happening?"

"Get away," Tyler panted.

"What's happening?"

"Get away!" Tyler shouted, lifting his face to them, and Caroline gasped, Giulia's body went lax, filled with sorrow at the sight of the black bleeding into the whites of Tyler's eyes, his golden irises shimmering in the lamplight. Giulia's eyes rested on Tyler's wrists, his cuffs revealing his bare skin as he raised his clenched fists to his temples, battling some internal struggle he could not define, had never wanted, was terrified of.

They all lingered in a sort of suspended shock. The grief of what Tyler would have to endure struck her, Giulia felt her eyes burn and she pressed her palm over her eyes, startled when she felt the alien diamanté crystals scratch against her skin. She clenched her eyes shut, counting, thinking, and just…morbidly depressed at what Tyler was about to go through. For a moment, she allowed the emotions to drench every cell in her body.

"Tyler… Where's your bracelet?" she asked quietly. Even to her own ears, her voice sounded faraway, hollow, devastated. Barely a week had passed since she had given Tyler that braided leather cord bracelet. The one that would have protected him from this. Panting, confused, Tyler blinked and stared at his wrists; dawning realisation made shock and devastation stand out on his pale features, and he raised normal black eyes to her face.

"I…forgot to put it on after I showered," he half-whispered. Giulia closed her eyes, feeling a hot wetness pooling between her lashes, devastated. Grief seemed to settle on her like a weight, unexpected and totally bowling her over. He had forgotten to put it on…

Tyler had triggered his curse.

Even she didn't know fully what that meant.

Mason had given her something to hold on to just in case Tyler ever triggered his curse. A precaution – he had hoped Tyler would never need it. Giulia had asked Sheila for her help – preventing someone from becoming supernatural by killing someone, Miss Sheila was game for it…

Elijah never crossed her mind: he was locked away back in the cloakroom, still…still separate.

This was Katherine. She sniffed, pulled herself together, and exhaled slowly.

Pitting innocent children against each other… It had Katherine written all over it, and Giulia regretted she hadn't been quick enough dealing with Katerina to ensure Sarah's safety against Katherine's compulsion – and Tyler's safety from Sarah.

But she would not blame herself for Tyler triggering his curse. She had done all she could. Locked away Katherine, asked Miss Sheila to spell the bracelet… She would not blame herself for Tyler not wearing it.

"It's gonna be okay, Tyler," Caroline said, her tone so gentle, reassuring. Giulia stared at Sarah. Her eyes closed, she looked like she was sleeping. She had seen one person like that before; her dad. Sarah was the second human Giulia had ever seen dead. And there was something horrifically real about it. About realising she'd missed out on chats with Sarah at the door to their AP English class by attending UV. That her fun mother would be…destroyed. The little-sister Giulia was helping coach on the spring Little League 'Lupins' soccer team whose hair Sarah braided for her before each game. The atmosphere on the cheer bus when they headed to the Classic in a couple weeks, one of their friends…gone.

"You don't know what this means," Tyler said softly.

"Yes…I do," Caroline sighed.

"No… You don't."

"Has your wound healed?"

Giulia rose to her feet, glancing at Jeremy, who was staring at Sarah's body, shocked, at Caroline, whose expression was calm and reassuring as Tyler reached under his shirt to feel the wound Sarah had inflicted with the letter-opener…finding no wound at all; triggering his curse had gifted Tyler with supernatural healing. To get him through every full-moon transformation, so he could relive the horror of it every month.

"Jeremy…please go and grab the hand-towels from the cloakroom. Caroline…could you put Matt in your car, and go and find Damon?" Giulia said softly, taking charge of the situation. She glanced at Matt; he was out cold.

"We – I need to tell my mom, I – she attacked me, I didn't mean–!"

"Tyler, we know," Giulia said gently, reaching for the bloody letter-opener and tucking it behind some encyclopaedias in the bookcase, for now.

"Giulia, I – should we get my mom?" Caroline asked under her breath. Giulia glanced at her, then down at Sarah.

"She wouldn't be okay with this," Giulia said. Liz would do what she could to protect her daughter, and Tyler too, as her friend Carol's son; but Giulia wouldn't have Liz complicit in actively moving a dead body from a crime-scene to stage a teenage-girl's death where it wouldn't implicate anyone. She wouldn't do that to Liz, to make her cross that boundary. It was one thing to protect the supernatural; it was quite another to actively help them.

But Tyler – all of them – being implicated in the death of Sarah wouldn't help anyone. Too many questions would need answering, there would be too many people looking into their lives. To discover things too impossible to explain away. No-one could know their involvement in Sarah's death, accidental as it had been. People watched far too much CSI not to come up with their own theories about how a teenage girl ended up dead in a private room where her friends were partying around her.

Jeremy returned first, smuggling the towels into the room; Giulia quickly wiped down the desk, had Tyler throw the towels in the laundry for the housekeeper to deal with. The desk was set to rights, the room tidied, and once Damon had gathered up Sarah with a roll of his eyes and a sigh, the study looked completely undisturbed.

"Make it look like an accident," Giulia said, as Damon carried Sarah away. "And – not on her parents' front-step, please." Damon gave her a look, but she returned it; she did have to clarify. Damon had enough experience to know how to pose a body. But he also had a warped sense of humour. And they were all becoming too desensitised to dead-bodies. To death.

"We're gonna have to tell Liz," Damon said quietly, glancing at Caroline.

"Not until Sarah's been found," Giulia said. Damon shrugged, and carried Sarah away. Without Sarah's body on the floor, the room looked like it always did, functional and perfect. Once Sarah's body had been found, they could tell Liz what she needed to know: that Sarah had died because Katherine had compelled her to attack Tyler, attempting to trigger the werewolf curse latent in Tyler's DNA. That Tyler was now a werewolf, and on the full-moon he would turn into a wolf. What Giulia had read of Isobel Fleming's research was that werewolf-bites were fatal to vampires. That werewolves could tear through humans like a blade through butter, and on full-moon nights there was no controlling their rage, the aggression, the instinct to hunt. To kill.

Tyler was panting, overwhelmed; Giulia went to him, reaching up to loosen his tie, undo his top-button. She found herself hugging Tyler before she knew what she was doing. This wasn't supposed to happen. She had locked Katherine away. Given Tyler the bracelet. He was supposed to be safe.

But he was never going to be okay again.

Just like Caroline, he had been dragged against his will into the world of the supernatural.

Her best-friend was a vampire. So were her only surviving relatives. Her ex-boyfriend was a werewolf. One of her friends was a doppelganger, another a witch. Possibly Jeremy would reveal himself as the Abominable Snowman. The man she was fucking was a thousand-year-old Viking in a perfectly-tailored vampire suit.

How had they come to this?

Six months ago she had had a father. Her best-friend had been a bitchy, insecure little girl. Her ex-boyfriend had been a tool. Elena hadn't known the secret. There had been no such thing as werewolves. She had never imagined a man like Elijah Mikaelson existed.

* * *

"Today was a crap day," she said hollowly in the dark. She had scratched the crystals off her face, scrubbed it until it stung; she was curled up in her comfiest slob clothes, hair pulled into a braid, her eyes burning as she pressed her face into her pillow. Elijah's arm was heavy around her waist, comforting in the dark, his hard body wrapped around hers, cocooning her, thigh wedged between hers, and she felt him sigh against her back, his breath feathering down the neck of her t-shirt. Tyler had triggered his curse.

She heard Elijah sigh softly, and she shivered when he pressed a kiss against her neck. "Tomorrow may be better."

"It will be," she murmured disconsolately. Tomorrow is a new day, as Scarlett said. Now, in this moment, vulnerable and open in Elijah's arms, she would allow herself a few moments of sheer devastation – for her friends; for the ever-increasing danger they were all in. Of all of them, Giulia herself was in the least amount of danger. Oh, she was sure had Elijah not closed the loopholes in his compulsion, the moment Katherine escaped the tomb she would have Giulia's voice-box for a charm to add to her bracelet. She was a lower-risk, but she had more knowledge than any of the others combined, and she had to use that. She couldn't mope; when she woke up tomorrow she would be ruthless and devoted, composed and her usual self. A workaholic insomniac who drank too much, was in a complicated battle of wills with a thousand-year-old Viking, used her intelligence as an emotional wall and was building it so high she was getting nosebleeds. But someone absolutely devoted to protecting her friends by all the means at her disposal.

Tomorrow she would visit Slater in Richmond. He'd called, asked her over to his apartment for a coffee. He said to discuss her theses he had been proofreading for her – she respected his opinion, after reading his dissertations. She would get up, she would put on a nice top and some mascara, she would drive to Richmond and have coffee with her new friend. She would discover what he had learned, and see what she could do with it.

Tomorrow would be better.

She and Caroline would tag-team to help Tyler through this transition, though neither of them had any idea what to expect.

None of them had felt like sticking around after Damon confirmed via text to Giulia that the job was done. Jeremy had driven tipsy Jenna and Ric home, the couple enjoying the benefits of an underage designated-driver so they could both enjoy some free champagne. Stefan had disappeared early on, wheedled by Damon about stalking his ex, staying long enough to confirm Elena was safe…happy dancing with Bonnie and picking at the dessert buffet, teasing a tipsy Jenna. Caroline had managed to get Tyler home; Giulia had stayed late with Tyler. While Mrs Lockwood had staggered upstairs, very late; she had smiled blearily at them, hanging out on the sofa in the study, Giulia's heels kicked off, Tyler's tie thrown across the room. Just like old times.

Except, unlike old times, Giulia was now indoctrinating Tyler into the world of the supernatural. Her world.

Coming from her, he hadn't taken it badly at all; he'd kind of chuckled sadly, shaking his head, and sighed. Figured it explained a lot about her; and that if anyone could kick supernatural ass, it was her.

She'd explained everything over bourbon, helping dull Tyler's new supernatural senses that continued to overwhelm him, his body struggling to adjust. But he would. If he wanted to survive, Tyler would adjust. It was up to her and Caroline to ensure he thrived.

Emotionally exhausted, Giulia hugged Elijah's arm closer to her, wriggling against his body until she found a comfortable spot, and dozed, her phone within reach in case she got any more texts from Tyler.

"You did all you could," Elijah said softly, pressing his lips to the back of her neck. "No-one could ever ask you to do more… Your friend will survive this…you will ensure that."

Despite her best efforts, she had lost this bout.

Now Sarah was dead, and Tyler's life was irrevocably altered. She sighed, reflecting on the story Elijah had told her about Rollo. The werewolf his mother had gifted a ring… The biological father of Willem, she suspected…and Klaus.

If she could find one, she could learn about the other.

She drifted off to sleep in Elijah's arms, thinking about his brothers. Her plans. Her suspicions, oddly excited to learn their secrets. To reshape, polish, refine her plans…thinking…longer-term. What Elijah had told her, she would not be content to just ensure her friends' safety. From what she had learned, there was too much to do… This Klaus was supposedly a scintillating villain, an enemy no-one dared cross, no-one could outwit.

Well, she wanted to outmanoeuvre him.

She needed a few breadcrumbs, that was all; Slater could help her source those. And then she was perfectly capable of following the trail herself.

* * *

Elijah woke her with a cup of coffee, resting fully-dressed beside her on the bed. He leaned down, stroking a lock of hair away from her face and groaned, trying to burrow deeper under the sheets. He chuckled softly, leaning down to kiss her temple.

"It's a new day," he said softly, and she mumbled something distractedly, drawn back into sleep, the rich scent of the coffee drawing her to consciousness after she had forgotten Elijah had spoken to her. She yawned, preening, and dropped out of bed. Her phone rang as she pottered about, sorting out the house, reorganising her books.

"Hey, Car," she yawned. "What's up?"

"What's up?" Caroline all but screeched. "Tyler is totally freaking out and he can't get ahold of Mason and all that stuff you told him last night is just bouncing around inside his head."

"It's too early for you to be this exasperated with me," Giulia said, then frowned. "Where are you?"

"At the diner," Caroline sighed. "I'm trying to teach Tyler to sublimate the kill-innocent-people cravings with carbs. D'you know, he's like, really hot."

"Um, Caroline…"

"Not like that," Caroline blurted, and Giulia could practically feel her blushing. "Like his body's like on fire."

"Heightened temperature could have something to do with his metamorphosis," Giulia mused. The werewolf transformation was different to that of a vampire due to one indisputable fact: werewolves were still alive. Their bodies had to be able to handle the change, to exert a lot of strength and power… "Make sure he does eat a tonne of protein and carbs, I'm sure there's a link to the change and his metabolism. I'll come and meet you guys."

"Thank you! Maybe you can help calm him down," Caroline sighed. "You're like, the only person he ever listened to."

"What?" Giulia laughed. "He walked all over me. And I let him."

"Well, we've all grown as people," Caroline said fairly. "Just hurry, okay, he's getting fidgety and eyeing up the family with three screaming toddlers like he wants to rip their throats out."

"I can hear you, Caroline," Giulia heard Tyler's dry voice in the background. "Don't tell me you're not thinking about it too, if your senses are more heightened even than mine."

"Just eat your waffle – hurry up and get here, Giulia, so I can be mad at you for Damon stopping by my house this morning," Caroline ordered, hanging up. Giulia sighed. She had a hundred things she needed to do today, and babysitting a newborn werewolf was not one of the things on her list – but Tyler was her friend, ish, and she valued her friendships. Twenty minutes later she was tucked in a booth at the most popular diner in town, a short-stack waiting for her with a coffee and a quart of Diet Coke and a bowl of fruit. The entire table was laden with dishes – Tyler had ordered the biggest breakfast on the menu, due to Caroline's urging he needed to chow-down on carbs not children.

It was probably surreal for Tyler, being thrown into the deep-end of the supernatural and realising his ex-girlfriend and all the people he probably considered casual friends at best, schoolmates at worst, old rivals for the girl he was into, the guy who'd joined the football team for one game and should have led them to State but quit, so casually talking about him triggering his curse, talking about his uncle, generally knowing worlds more than he did about his own life, his family. But at least he had them to talk to. He wasn't alone, as Mason had feared. And Giulia had made sure Mason knew; Tyler wasn't going through this alone. They may not be a pack of werewolves, but in their own twisted way they were sort of like a pack.

Listening to Tyler describe how his body felt was very interesting: they compared it to Caroline's experience, waking up in transition, heightened senses, intoxicated by the smell of blood, the side-effects of drinking that blood – growing fangs, burning in the sunlight, able to compel humans, remembering things she had been compelled to forget by vampires. Tyler had none of that – he had never been compelled. His emotions were heightened, he sat shocked in that booth by the violence of his reactions to the slightest things; he had almost ripped his mother's head off earlier when she had told him off for his dad's desk smelling like tequila, asking if anyone had been in the study. His guilt and shock at Sarah's death were magnified unbearably. But he didn't have fangs. His body was on fire, Giulia placed her hand on his arm and was surprised by just how hot he was; if her senses had been heightened, she was sure she would have heard her skin sizzle against his. And he had consumed not one but three of the diner's most enormous breakfasts, though he told her what he really craved was meat. And rare. Giulia was pleased; he'd always been a well-done guy, she couldn't stand her steaks any more done than medium-rare.

The one change Tyler himself had noticed immediately was that his usual aggression, the antsy, fidgety kind of frustration and annoyance, had gone. He was an angry guy by nature, quick to jump down people's throats, unable to walk a way from a fight, his skin had always felt tight on his body, uncomfortable. Jittery, nervous. But despite the mental repercussions of triggering his curse, physically Tyler said he felt…calmer. Like he had shed something, he…felt relieved.

"Maybe that's not the right word," Tyler sighed, frowning at the fresh plate of scrambled-eggs that had been carried over by their waitress, who had to take away several empty dishes while Caroline consumed fruit and pancakes and Giulia enjoyed a waffle with fresh berries. "Like…settled. I don't know, I feel more like myself. You know, I used to get so angry all the time, I wouldn't even know what to do with it, why it was happening… Now I'm just…me."

"Until the full-moon," Caroline remarked, and Giulia rolled her eyes, smiling as the waitress refilled their coffees.

"Yeah…" Tyler said softly. " I…don't even know what that really means."

"Did you try Mason?"

"Yeah, I left a bunch of messages on all the numbers my mom had for him in Florida," Tyler sighed. "Nothing. His cell voicemail is full."

"He left it behind," Giulia said, something gnawing in the pit of her stomach.

"How do you know that?" Tyler asked.

"Mason told me," Giulia sighed. She had called Mason as soon as she had left Tyler last night. "I let him know what's going on."

"You've got his number?" Tyler frowned. "Why would you give it to me – or my mom?"

"Because he needs to stay hidden," Giulia said. "Mason ran because Katherine will kill him for betraying her. He may have only removed himself from the situation but she'll even see that as a reason to rip his heart out of his chest. I know how to get in contact with him, that's all anybody needs to know. He knows what happened. He's gonna try and get back, but he's tied up wherever he is, and he doesn't want to be travelling around the full-moon, it's too unpredictable he'll be able to find somewhere private to turn."

"But what about Katherine?" Caroline asked in an undertone. "Is it safe for Mason to come back?"

"Better question would be to ask if Katherine is safe from Mason's bite on a full-moon since she just went out and triggered Tyler's curse," Giulia mused. She wasn't giving anything away about Katherine, not yet. She didn't want them all getting complacent in her absence. Especially with what she knew was coming.

Constant vigilance, Mad-Eye had taught them. And she was first-generation Harry Potter. Damon had sent her the first-edition books from London when he'd found them in a bookstore, way before the hype had started. All her copies were the English versions.

"I thought you guys said this was all like super top-secret, like death if I told anyone," Tyler said, frowning bemusedly between them. They had been casually talking about the supernatural and Tyler's upcoming transformation into a wolf in the middle of a crowded diner. But Giulia had learned from Harry Potter; Sirius had advised Hermione that the first meeting of Dumbledore's Army would have been less-likely to be overheard in the crowded Three Broomsticks than the deserted Hog's Head. And in her mind, Pippin spoke up, "The closer you are to danger, the farther you are from harm."

"Yeah, we convinced Damon not to murder you," Caroline sighed. "He's kind of got a hair-trigger."

"Especially where his life's concerned," Giulia said drily.

"Hey, how long do we have until the full-moon, anyway?" Caroline asked, her curls bouncing. "Hang on, let me get my phone, I'll check. We can figure it out."

"Um…we? Vampires don't have enough problems, you wanna take on mine?"

"You know Car-Bear, she just can't help herself," Giulia smiled fondly at her best-friend. If there was anyone you wanted on your team, it was Caroline Forbes.

"Have you thought about it, the whole…wolf thing? Do you know what you're going to do?"

"I have a plan," Tyler said, glancing around the diner as if everyone was eavesdropping. He gave Caroline a weird look when she didn't look away. "It's kind of…private."

"I'm head of the prom committee. Not to mention I single-handedly organised the town's Go Green campaign, and you're seriously gonna turn down my help?" Caroline said, raising her eyebrows.

Whatever he feared from the full-moon was obviously bad enough he didn't want anyone to see it – but he didn't want to be alone during it, either. Last night before Giulia had left, she had warned him against telling anyone on pain of death; Tyler had choked quietly that he didn't have anyone else to tell.

Tyler's only friends.

And he was scared.

Caroline couldn't help it; Giulia was in this wholeheartedly. She had made a promise to herself to protect the people she cared about, and she may have wished painful STDs on Tyler, but this…this was something different altogether. And especially, as it had not been his fault. For the first time in his life Tyler had not caused the fight that had ended in a girl's death. Giulia didn't know where she stood with Tyler; they had been making overtures towards friendship, rebuilding a bond like they had before…before they had started dating. When they had been…friends. Best-friends. But they had a long way to go before that; they had had a few civil conversations. But Giulia did remember their friendship, their bond. She remembered the boy he used to be when he didn't think people were looking… She had sensed enough from Mason to know she didn't want this for Tyler. She had tried to prevent it. That failing, she didn't want Tyler to go through it alone. She…wanted him to know she was there, she and Caroline both were, that they were going to get him through this.

That he wasn't alone. And if he was scared, they were, too.

This was new territory, and no-one really knew what to expect. She didn't want this happening to him. But it was.

Just like the sacrifice would inevitably happen. It was just a question of how soon.

With Tyler at least they knew definitively that it would happen on the full-moon and be over by sunrise the next morning. He'd still be alive. Altered irrevocably, but alive. They could plan for it. Caroline was an excellent organiser. Any plan others made, she could usually better.

Giulia smiled sadly, saying, "Accept it; we're in this with you."

* * *

 **A.N.** : So, Tyler still triggers his curse, unfortunately. But it'll be the making of him, I promise.


	21. Slater

**A.N.** : Hi everyone, want to say a huge thank-you for all the recent reviews. In my head, Joshua Salvatore is a combo in looks of Damon Salvatore and Daryl Dixon.

Also, I am updating this from the Jailhouse Hostel in Christchurch, New Zealand! I had to pay for the wifi (weeps!) but I've had many requests and prompts and threats for updates, so here we are! I've also been thinking (again) of a GoT story I've wanted to write for ages – please no spoilers, I haven't watched any of the new season…

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 **Dangerous Beauty**

 _21_

 _Slater_

* * *

An afternoon watching eight-year-olds swarm around a soccer-ball like bumblebees had drifted into a sunset during which she sat on a bench at the sports park answering texts and emails, catching up with people via phone-call and reflecting on the fact Sarah's little sister had been conspicuous in her absence from practice. She ate a snack-shack dinner alone, pondering when to show Tyler the journal and memory-card Mason had entrusted to her before he had skipped town. She had watched enough of the video to know she wasn't sure showing Tyler before his first transformation was a good idea.

It had terrified the shit out of her and she wasn't even the one who had to go through it. But showing that to Tyler? It would give him an idea, but how could anyone be prepared for what she had seen? There was no understanding what she would never have to experience – but Tyler would. She shouldn't have watched the video, shouldn't have read Mason's journal, Mason shouldn't have given them to her. Ignorance was bliss. But she knew Tyler too well. Already saw a shift in him. Triggering his curse had scared the hell out of him like nothing in his life ever had. The shadow of Sarah's death still lingered, too fresh. People hadn't been told yet about Sarah. But they knew, and it was a secret that had bonded them all together – Tyler, her, Caroline, Jeremy. Matt had been knocked out cold by Caroline, didn't remember a thing except for getting uncharacteristically drunk and picking a fight with Tyler who, for the first time, had resisted the urge to throw a punch.

She sighed, glancing at her phone, mildly curious by the interruption to her conflicted mental process, and raised her eyebrows interestedly as she accepted a phone-call.

"Hello, Slater," she smiled, excited.

"You free for coffee tomorrow morning?" he asked by way of greeting.

"For semla I could be," Giulia said, smiling to herself. He had something. Slater chuckled.

"Yeah, I found something," he confirmed. "It may be nothing, I don't know, but it might be worth you taking a look."

"Alright. I'll come by," Giulia said. "What time?"

"Is ten too early for you?"

"Ten's good." She'd have the rest of the day to get things sorted out. She finished her tray of nachos, dumped it in the trash-can and made her way back to her car. It was still warm inside, the heat continuing to rise every day after a brief respite the week after Spring Break. Virginia summers were always sticky, but Giulia lived for the stifling heat. Everyone was happier in the sun. She sucked on her straw, still working through the bucket of fresh lemonade she had bought with her nachos and slung herself into the driver's seat of her car. After a full valet and a new paint-job, the Beetle was almost unrecognisable – several times she had walked past it in a parking-lot, still looking for faded red.

There were things she had to do, things she needed to get sorted and out of the way. Like hiding the moonstone. The boys were out, doing God knew what – it was a Saturday-night; Stefan and Elena were still on the outs; Damon was most likely catching Liz up on the Sarah situation. But it gave her a window, and she had the evening to herself, Elijah away 'on business'. That was code for she should mind her own, and make contingencies. Something was about to happen.

The Boarding House was quiet when she arrived. Early-evening sunlight still filtered through the stained-glass windows, and the house was warmer than usual. The Boarding House always had a coolness to it that had nothing to do with its vampire inhabitants not needing central-heating. But the boys were out, and she took the empty bourbon bottles as indication of where Damon would be; replenishing the stocks. She dawdled into Stefan's room, finding his most recent diary on the desk; she peered over it, reading the latest entries. Dark stuff. But he was at least honest about their human-blood experiment. He drank more bourbon, and doubled his consumption of carbs. He reflected on Tyler triggering his curse, how Damon thought the best course of action was to kill him rather than risk a nip on full-moon nights. Stefan thought differently, and surprised Giulia; he expressed admiration at Caroline and Giulia putting in so much effort to embrace Tyler into their group and help him through his transition.

She poured herself a drink and meandered upstairs to the attic doorway. It was always ominous heading up there, and it needed more mental preparation than to just wander up there and deal with a hundred and fifty-years of pack-rat relatives hoarding everything they thought they might need in the future – and had never used again. Slowly but surely Giulia had started working through the junk, she had donated a lot of it to the now-permanent Founders' display at the museum. But the amount of crap up here made Stefan's room look sparsely-decorated and well-organised. Old furniture, boxes upon boxes, cardboard ones scribbled over, old-school steamer trunks, battered metal footlockers, clothing-racks from which garment-bags hung heavily, full of vintage furs and the extensive 1950s wardrobe of Giulia's grandmother Doll, Mystic Falls' very own fashion icon. Old carpets were rolled up, car-battery chargers, old furniture considered even too bulky and antique to fit with the rest of the house! They could open up a museum charting the evolution of the wireless, radios and televisions, she doubted her family had ever thrown out an old vacuum, there were vintage kitchen appliances – having undying relatives had given previous generations a greater sense of the value of history. All of this crap was history, but it was ridiculous keeping it all in here. As she picked through random boxes and things, she made notes of places she needed to look up – surely there were museums that would appreciate a legitimate early-1920s wireless?

Her family had been in the habit of putting anything broken up in the attic rather than throw it away or immediately repair it. Pack-rats. It was a wonder none of her relatives had died, crushed under hoarded newspapers, which she found several cardboard boxes full of.

Clothes, film-reels, photographs and jewellery, unique pieces of furniture like a glorious Art Deco dressing-table, she made a note to keep and move to her own place. But she wasn't here to go through her relatives' crap. She was here to hide the moonstone, and wanted to find the most obscure nook or cranny to stuff it where no-one would ever find it. Up here was perfect.

But what she dreaded finding was a body.

Hey, it wouldn't surprise her. But she didn't have time to dig a grave or get Damon to compel a crematorium-worker, or deal with Stefan playing the blame-game with Damon. They were at a good place, Stefan's disappointment in Damon if she found a sixty-year-old corpse was just something she didn't care to indulge him in.

She squawked in pain as she stubbed her toe on the sharp corner of a steamer trunk. She glanced down, grimacing at the blood flourishing from her big toe. Sighing, she turned and sat down on the flat top of the trunk, lifting her heel to rest on it as she pulled a Kleenex from her bag, wrapping it over her toe. It throbbed more from impact than the bleeding, but she sighed, yawning in the miserable Amber gloom – it was hot up here! There was no ventilation – she needed to fix that. She may have to recruit Stefan and Damon to help her go through all of this crap – hell, she'd get Caroline in on it, she'd love it – before she could get a contractor to take a look and see what improvements could be made to climate-control the attic. Holding her toe, she glowered down at the offending trunk, sympathising with Harry Potter when he'd kicked his Hogwarts trunk and got nothing for it but a throbbing toe. At least he'd been wearing shoes. Her pretty sandals were not the think to be wearing while going through the attic. She'd dig out her steel-toed boots next time. And make sure with Meredith she was all up-to-date with her immunisation shots.

The trunk, she frowned at… She should have known, really. It was a legitimate, antique Louis Vuitton. Battered and much-loved, but recognisable as the label-making flat-topped steamer trunks Vuitton had become known for.

"Hello?!" Giulia jumped, glancing up, following the noise. Caroline? Oh. She'd forgotten – she had invited Caroline and Tyler via text to meet her at the Boarding House to hang out. They had the best bourbon in town, and she got the sense from Tyler's texts that he really needed a drink.

"Up in the attic," Giulia called, not bothering to raise her voice much. "Fair warning, I stubbed my toe and it's bleeding."

Caroline appeared moments later, hair gleaming in the dull golden lamplight, raising her eyebrows at the expansive attic stuffed almost to the rafters. Tyler followed behind her, gym-bag slung over his shoulder. At least he'd showered before leaving the gym; he dumped the bag outside the attic so it didn't get misplaced, raising his eyebrows around as well.

"You know, you really shouldn't be wearing sandals if you're trying to work through all of this stuff," Caroline chided, a bottle of bourbon and several glasses in her hands.

"And you really shouldn't be stealing Damon's favourite vintage," Giulia commented, shrewdly eyeing the label on the bottle. "But that is the best. Crack her open."

"So…we're spending our Saturday night drinking bourbon in your attic," Tyler rolled his eyes, chuckling.

"And spring-cleaning," Giulia added, lifting up a battered shoebox full of cassette-tapes pointedly. She sighed, glancing around the huge attic. "Y'know, I used to think if I could clear this stuff out, it'd be like Little Women where the sisters all meet in the attic for their secret newspaper meetings."

"It would be a pretty cool place to hang out," Caroline mused. "So is that your next project after we finish building the teardrop-trailer?"

"I think it could be," Giulia mused.

"What're you gonna do with this place?" Tyler asked, glancing around the attic. "You know, my mom's thinking of selling the house?"

"What?" Caroline blurted.

"Yeah. I mean, it's mine and Mason's and my dad's family-home and Mom loves it, loves the status it gives her, but I think she's been meeting with the accountants," Tyler sighed.

"Well, the Mayor only makes so much and your dad threw more lavish parties than anyone in town," Giulia said fairly. "I guess your family has more branches than mine, though, with your dad's sister and everything… Guess it all has to be shared out."

"And that explains why you have all this crap," Caroline said, poking idly through a box.

"Yeah. No surviving uncles or aunts, no other relatives whatsoever… Still, at least I don't have to share the vintage clothing and jewellery with anyone but you," Giulia smiled at Caroline, who chuckled.

"I think I'm too tall for most of those clothes," she said, eyeing the clothing-racks. "Although I would love a look for ideas for the Sixties dance."

"I thought you were going as Jackie O."

"Oh, I am. I meant, ideas for you," Caroline said, and Giulia rolled her eyes. Caroline glanced at Tyler. "Are you going?"

"To the dance? I mean, I guess, if it's not on a full-moon," Tyler shrugged, and he reached for the bottle of bourbon Caroline had set down. "Kinda wouldn't mind just chilling out, you know? Maybe I could stay here and go through all this crap for you."

"Uh, no. The only way we're all going to get through all this supernatural drama is if we take the opportunity to enjoy ourselves whenever we can," Caroline declared. "That means you're going to the dance." Giulia caught Tyler's eye, and they both stifled smirks as they bent over boxes, rooting through random junk.

Caroline went to go and get trash-bags while Giulia sourced Stefan's record-player, and they got into the mood for the upcoming Sixties dance by listening to Stefan's favourite 1960s records.

"So, this is like a legitimate Louis Vuitton steamer trunk?" Caroline said, glancing at the trunk they were now using as a coffee-table, fingers of bourbon poured out into Baccarat-crystal tumblers.

"Yep. Could be worth a couple grand if I find the right buyer," Giulia said, eyeing it.

"I wouldn't sell it – looks good as a coffee-table," Caroline said.

"I'll gift it to you for your first house," Giulia promised. "Come on, let's take a look inside. Box at a time." They had already gone through three cardboard-boxes full of her dad's random crap, extension cables and phone-chargers and ancient camcorders. They'd watched a video of one of Giulia and Tyler's earliest soccer games, chubby-cheeked little kids in t-shirts that swamped them, Band-Aids on bloody knees, lopsided ponytail buns and missing teeth. They'd laughed when, instead of pelting after the ball, Giulia had fallen back to help Tyler off the grass, where he had sprawled after colliding with another boy. Four years old, Tyler bawling, little Giulia, looking full of cold and sucking a pacifier, had straightened his t-shirt and dusted the grass and blood off his knees, taken his hand and jogged after the ball with a determined scowl.

"Oh my god, you are so cute!" Caroline cooed, laughing, as Tyler chuckled, leaning over her shoulder to watch. "And you haven't changed at all, look at that scowl, that's like, 'Get out of my way, don't mess with me, stay away from me, I-will-cut-a-bitch, you haters!'"

"Yeah, that's kind of how I describe my eyeliner look at the moment," Giulia nodded thoughtfully, smiling at the camcorder screen. "Okay, we'll put all these in the To Be Reviewed pile."

"Come on, what's in the Louis Vuitton?" Caroline prompted, and they removed the box of cassette-tapes, labelled in handwriting Giulia didn't recognise with obscure references. Placed in the 'To Be Reviewed' pile, definitely. Giulia took a swig of bourbon before the others took hold of the other glasses and the bottle of bourbon, shoving a hamster-ball, some old Tupperware and an empty gas canister away, to unlock and lift open the lid of the trunk.

"Whoa," Tyler said under his breath, as they all stared at the jumbled contents.

"So…who the hell did this belong to?" Caroline asked, staring. Inside it looked like…the contents of the Winchesters' Impala. Only, with more wooden stakes and vervain flowers scattered about, and odd symbols and things all over the inside of the lid. There were the glossy folders you used to get when picking up developed photos from Rite-Aid, lots of beaten-up journals, and weapons. Folded maps, weathered and old, Manila folders full of newspaper cuttings and police reports.

"I think…I think this belonged to my uncle," Giulia said quietly. A road-map of Pennsylvania was on the top of a pile of leather-bound journals and books, a copy of White Fang and Call of the Wild, The Lord of the Flies, a copy of Moliere's work and another by Voltaire, nature books and magazines…on wolves. She picked up a large metal tin, opened it to reveal old photographs, protected from time and light, the elements, coils of negatives protected in little sleeves.

"Is that your dad?" Tyler asked quietly, as Giulia slowly went through a handful of photographs.

"Yeah," Giulia said softly.

"He's handsome," Caroline said sadly. Giulia nodded. Not up to Damon's standards, perhaps, but her dad had definitely been good-looking in his younger days. Time and grief had taken a lot from him.

"Who's the other guy?" Tyler asked curiously.

"I think that must be my dad's brother, Joshua," Giulia said thoughtfully. She'd never even seen pictures of him, her dad was so private about all the kinds of stuff that had happened before she was born. The people in his life before then were nearly all gone by the time her dad had been killed. Only Liz, Tyler's dad. "God, he's hot."

"He's your uncle!"

"And you accused me of being kissing-cousins with Stefan," Giulia reminded her, and Caroline chuckled, blushing slightly.

"Your uncle looks more like Damon," Tyler remarked. "Not like obviously, but I mean, you look more like your uncle than your dad."

"My mom had the same colouring," Giulia said. Joshua Salvatore had been dark-haired and olive-skinned where her dad had been a light-brunette, blue-eyed. She flipped through more pictures, and stared. "Oh my god." It looked like Caroline, beaming back at her. "Caroline, it's your mom!"

"What?"

"Yeah, and…Tyler's dad. That's Miranda – and that is definitely Grayson Gilbert. Wow. Jeremy really looks like him. That's my dad," Giulia smiled sadly. Set against the backdrop of the Impala long-forgotten in the rundown stables, a group of people in their early-twenties grinned back at the camera. The hairstyles and clothing indicated late-Eighties, maybe even early Nineties. But that was definitely Liz, though Caroline looked so like her it was startling. In Giulia's entire life she'd never seen Liz with long hair. She looked so like Caroline they might've been twins. Liz was as stunning then as she was beautiful now. There was Giulia's dad, grinning in a way she had never seen him do, easy, full of life, relaxed. Beside him, his arms slung around younger Liz, was Joshua. Smirking over Liz's shoulder in a very Damon-esque way at the camera, hugging Liz to his front, blue-eyed and olive-skinned, dark-hair falling into his hooded eyes, wearing a rad leather jacket he might've inherited from Damon's Seventies punk phase. Probably was, actually, she thought, squinting at it.

For three supernatural teenagers, they spent a really punk-rock night in the attic, sitting thighs pressed against each other as they went through that tin of photographs. Looking into their parents' lives in a way none of them could ever have predicted, these were the photos kids never realised their own children might ever see. The future mayor getting stoned with the future sheriff! Young Miranda and Grayson making out at a bonfire party; Giulia's long-missing uncle kissing Liz's cheek.

Just looking through the pictures it was so interesting to see who their parents had once been. Liz was now the Sheriff, but she had once been a blushing young twenty-something clearly in love with Giulia's relaxed, edgy uncle. There was a photograph of Joshua and Zach together, they had their arms slung around each other's shoulders, grinning from ear to ear, holding beer-bottles and (in her uncle's case) a joint, mid-laugh, eyes sparkling with the kind of mirth Giulia had never seen in her dad… She had never known her dad truly happy. How could he be – his brother was missing after twenty-odd years and the woman he had loved more than anything in the world was dead. All he'd had was Giulia.

It was strange, seeing their parents as only a few years older than they were now.

"What the hell?" Giulia murmured, setting her crystal tumbler down as Tyler and Caroline giggled over a few photographs of Carol's hair when she appeared in a photograph. She had spotted another photograph, buried under piles of others in the tin, but frowned and plucked it out.

Three men, arms slung around each other's shoulders, grinning from ear to ear, drinking and smoking. Damon, Joshua…and another man. With glorious blonde hair and cheekbones that could cut glass. Blazing blue eyes, and a charming white grin that was at once entrancing and lethal. He reminded her of a lion…or a wolf, Giulia thought to herself, staring at the picture. She had seen that face before, in Damon's single trunk full of memories he cared to keep. And on the wall of Billy's Bar.

The original Billy. The Original Willem.

So Joshua had known an Original. And from the outfit, the hairstyle, Giulia wagered Damon had seen Joshua shortly before his disappearance… Had Willem had something to do with that? She remembered her dad once telling her that the Sheriff's Department only managed to track down her uncle Joshua by his car. His beloved Impala had been abandoned in Pennsylvania, on a backroad heading out of Philadelphia. Covered in parking tickets. No Joshua.

"Who's that?"

"Someone whose face shouldn't be in my uncle's photo-album," Giulia said quietly. Philadelphia, she thought. Billy had told her that when the Original Willem had left New York City, he'd told Billy he'd planned to go to Thailand. Billy had doubted he ever did, but most likely wouldn't be able to guess where his friend had ended up… But Giulia…

Willem had fled New York City when he had bumped into Elijah on the street by chance. If she'd been Willem, dead set against mixing it up with his family-members, she'd have stayed close enough that she could keep an eye on things, but far enough away they'd never suspect she'd be that close… Pennsylvania…

Where had the Impala gotten all those parking-tickets? Where had her uncle truly disappeared? And why had he been in Pennsylvania – why was Joshua in a photograph with his immortal great-great-great-grandfather and an Original? Elijah's second-youngest surviving brother, someone he hadn't seen in a thousand years. The one who had struggled most with what they had become, complained least, and had taken the first opportunity to flee his siblings… Possibly the son of Rollo, the werewolf. Rollo's first son by Esther…

"Who is it?" Caroline asked softly. "I've seen him before, he was in a photo at Billy's in New York."

"I think…I think this is one of the Originals," Giulia said quietly.

"The what?" This, from Tyler.

"One of the Originals, the first family of vampires," Giulia said quietly. She glanced at Caroline, frowning. "Have I not told you the story?"

"I don't think so," Caroline said. So Giulia topped off their glasses, and gave a brief version of the story of the genesis of the vampire species, the war with the werewolves prompting a mother to protect her children with a spell that accidentally created the vampires, ending with, "…every vampire is descended from one of the Originals."

"So vampires are like an experiment gone wrong?" Caroline frowned, then shrugged as if this conclusion was fair.

"Well, I'm certain there could be some improvements," Giulia said fairly. "They were created to protect a mother's children from werewolves."

"So you think this guy is one of the Original vampires… Doesn't look much like a vampire to me," Tyler remarked, eyeing the blonde in the photograph.

"He looks really hot," Caroline murmured. The bourbon had started getting to her. But Giulia agreed. That man was fine. His photograph was very interesting. He hadn't aged, just like Elijah hadn't. So he had that going for him. If what she thought was true, that was very interesting… Mason had told her werewolf lifetimes were extended, but not indefinite, and due to the nature of the supernatural conflict between werewolves and vampires, few werewolves reached 'old age'. She was curious…how did a spell to create vampires work when it overlaid the latent potential of a werewolf? Surely there had to be repercussions of that. Nature demanded balance, after all – how did nature balance a werewolf with vampire traits forced over the top?

Klaus had had the latent potential of a werewolf when his mother had created the first vampires. According to Elijah, when he made his first kill as a vampire Klaus had triggered the werewolf gene latent in him. So the werewolf curse was strong enough to override Esther's spell. But only in her children; Giulia doubted a kid who hadn't triggered his curse could be given vampire blood, be killed and transition, would then trigger his werewolf trait… Could he?

The Originals were the very first of their species. Esther's magic had diluted when her children had created more of their kind, siring more vampires. But an Original was stronger, would linger in pain for days but not die from a werewolf-bite, and could compel other vampires…

Could someone with the latent werewolf gene be turned into a vampire and awaken those werewolf traits? Would they want to?

To combine Tyler's natural instincts with the unnatural urges forced on Caroline by magic…combined, how did they work together? The pack-mentality of the werewolf versus the vampire, the antithesis of unity through the Originals' teachings… If werewolves were pack-animals, in touch with their nature, vampires were stuck in time. Most were too old not to remember the world an entirely different place, more brutal, less civilised, the Originals themselves had been feudal, vicious soldiers when they needed to be, untiring farmers otherwise, carving out lives and raising families in a harsh land in a very harsh time. Vampires, in their very essence, were stuck.

Watching her two friends go through photographs, Giulia wondered. She poured them another drink, and they sat listening to music, going through old photographs of people who were mostly dead, making up stories about what had been happening in those pictures, and she asked them questions, comparing the alcohol-honest answers. Tyler's instinct versus Caroline's. Werewolf versus vampire. But she had to gauge personality against instinct, too, and that was the more difficult thing. She knew who Caroline was, but Caroline was learning who Tyler could be, the boy Giulia had sometimes seen glimpses of when he didn't think people were looking. When he knew she wouldn't hold it against him.

Whatever she learned from Tyler and Caroline about their basic natural instincts as a werewolf and vampire, she had never met Klaus or Willem to know how they would react to those same instincts. She knew enough of how Elijah had been raised to know the rest of his siblings had been brought up on the same values; honesty, a deep sense of family loyalty, to protect the vulnerable and care for the communities they built. To fight and die in the protection of the things he loved – his family. But Willem had fled his family. That sense of family loyalty Elijah had clung to for a thousand years despite every atrocity, always and forever, had not stuck with Willem in the same way. And from what she had heard of Klaus, he had always had a measure of narcissism and irresponsibility, and whether he had been given the same values as his siblings, they had warped over the centuries. An impossible narcissist, paranoid and self-pitying.

How…how would he acclimate to the werewolf traits rushing to the fore after them having been smothered for a millennium by his vampire instincts? Elijah had told her it had been only seven nights after Klaus had triggered the werewolf curse that Esther had placed Klaus under the spell he had been hellbent on breaking ever since. Seven days and nights as a hybrid, a millennium as a vampire. What did Klaus expect would happen when he broke the 'curse'? What had he built it up in his mind to be? And what was a hybrid's true nature?

Food for thought. And further incentive to continue her research. She took the photograph and tucked it into her bag, and while the others listened to music and had fun going through her family's ancestral junk, Giulia went through Joshua's belongings.

Maybe her dad had never thought she'd ever be going through this stuff. Maybe he had anticipated one day she might, but either way she believed her dad had left his brother's things just as he had found them in the Impala when the Sheriff's Department had finally tracked the car down outside Philadelphia. She found the last journal her uncle had written in, with a section of a roadmap annotated and stuffed inside, and when she shuffled out of the house following Tyler and Caroline to their own cars, she drove back to her house and tucked herself in bed with Firenze and a shoebox of journals.

* * *

At ten a.m. the next morning she knocked on the door of Slater's studio-apartment. Unlike Stefan, Slater was not a pack-rat. Clean, simple lines, textures, and a conglomeration of rapid-speed computers all whirring away, churning out information.

"Hey," Slater smiled. "You made it. Come on in. Oh, this is my girlfriend, Alice. Alice, this is-"

"Giulia Salvatore – No way!" the toothy brunette gaped, eyes popping.

"Hi," Giulia smiled awkwardly.

"Hey, don't you have to get to work?" Slater said, leaning in to give Alice a kiss on the cheek. Alice gave him an excited look before picking up her bag and departing. Giulia raised an eyebrow at Slater as the door shut behind her.

"She's obsessed with vampires. Almost as much as I am," Slater said, with an easy smile, chuckling to himself as he showed her into the living-area, where he had set up a tea-tray laden with fresh coffee and cardamom semla buns.

"I'm not a vampire," Giulia reminded him.

"No, but after what you did at the Fell tomb and the farmhouse, you're as close to Buffy as she'll ever get," Slater chuckled, and Giulia raised a hand to her heart.

"Slater…that is so sweet," she sighed. He chuckled. "How's your weekend been?"

"Good, thanks," Slater smiled. "Took the morning off to meet with you, so that's nice."

"You didn't have to do that for me," Giulia said, suddenly anxious. This whole mess was taking up her time and effort, she didn't want it bleeding into other people's lives. Especially when they had businesses to run.

"It's okay, they've got it handled down there," Slater said, shrugging. "It's good for me to take a step back every once in a while. I can never remember, do you have creamer?"

"Just black, thank you," Giulia smiled, as Slater poured two cups of coffee. "I have to say, I think your coffee's some of the best in Richmond."

"It's all about the roast," Slater smiled. "But I won't give you a lecture on single-source coffee beans and the roasting process." He offered her the coffee and a bun on a little plate. Everything was clean, white and plain but crisp. "You're here for the Originals."

"One, specifically," Giulia said, smiling as she accepted the coffee. Being invited into a new person's home always made her a little nervous, it was perfectly natural, but Slater was so…nice, so shy and intellectual she sometimes forgot he was a vampire. Only the fact he could only sit in on Miss Sheila's evening lectures reminded her.

"And you had to pick the most elusive one," Slater chuckled, shaking his head. "The one most people believe is a true myth."

"Did you find anything?"

"Not on Willem, no…" Slater said, glancing at Giulia with a small smile. He seemed nervous, more than his usual shyness. "I did – I don't know if this will interest you or not… Bring your coffee over to my computers."

"I was going to ask about those, are you observing Gotham City from there?" Giulia asked, as Slater produced a chair for her while he sat at the wheeled leather desk-chair, his computers thrumming into life.

"Wouldn't that be awesome," Slater smiled. "Sadly, no. However, I do have access to the deep web."

"Is that a new Batman villain?" Slater chuckled, and started showing her through his computer system. Giulia sipped her coffee, enjoying the warm flavour of the cardamom cream-bun Slater's baker made fresh every morning for the Scandi café downstairs, becoming enthralled as she watched Slater.

"I didn't find anything on Willem, yet," Slater said. "But I did find this…"

"It looks like a bad Nineties chat-room."

"That's exactly what it is," Slater smiled unapologetically. "Now this was hidden, password protected and all that, I had to take care to really cover my tracks in case they've set up snares. Don't want them knocking on my door…"

"Is that…Klaus?"

"Yeah. An entire online community dedicated to tracking Klaus Mikaelson," Slater sighed.

"Tracking? You mean they've lost him?"

"From what I've read, Klaus Mikaelson disappeared close to twenty years ago, poof," Slater said, snapping his fingers.

"Poof," Giulia frowned at the screen. "So why are they trying to find him?"

"Klaus is the biggest baddie in the vampire community, as I am sure you will have learned by now," Slater said quietly. "Over a thousand years old, you're bound to make some enemies. These, they're the remnants of his victims' families, from what I've gathered. From all different backgrounds, all factions, all continents, united in one cause: to find and destroy Klaus."

"That is a lot of hate," Giulia said quietly.

"Not underserved, I'm sure," Slater said softly. "I've heard stories, from one of my friends, to say his permanent annihilation would be a blessed relief is an understatement."

"She had a run-in with him?"

"Centuries ago. You either run or you die, with the Originals I've heard there's no third option," Slater mused. Giulia raised an eyebrow. Third Option: Sleep with one, she thought, clearing her throat.

"So these – I'm assuming the majority are vampires? Witches are vindictive but there's only so many generations a blood-feud can survive before people just realise the path they're on is doomed if they continued that way," Giulia murmured, "they've all got their eyes peeled waiting for some minuscule indication Klaus is around?"

"Didn't you hear? Vampires have great eyesight," Slater smiled. "We don't need billboards."

"Interesting," Giulia frowned. "So who's posted?"

"Bunch of randoms, and they're using a lot of really advanced, complicated tech to obscure their location and all that," Slater sighed. "Usernames don't exactly give a life-history but there's an interesting poster. Their username is simply 'Order'." Giulia blinked.

"As in the Order," she asked. Slater glanced at her, his expression slipping somewhat.

"You've heard of them?" he asked hesitantly.

"Just. I think my uncle, Joshua, was involved with them," she said. What she didn't say was that from what she had read of Joshua's journals, she believed the Order had been responsible for his disappearance. One of his notes had made the fine hairs on the back of her neck rise; 'Abbie's gone. I'm in this alone'. And there could be only one Abbie he was referencing, she hoped. Abbie Bennett.

Who better to have in one's not-so-secret vampire-eradicating secret organisation than a witch? A Bennett witch? The mother of a little girl she had abandoned when Bonnie was three years old. The woman who had appeared in several of Joshua's photographs, pretty, with enormous natural hair. The woman who, according to Joshua's journals, had desiccated Mikael. It had been Joshua who hid the body from everyone, including those in the Order, to ensure Mikael remained out of their way while the Order tried to track down the means to eradicate the other Original vampires from the earth, combining witch magic, werewolf resilience and human resources.

That was an interesting development, that Mikael was desiccated. Elijah couldn't know. What remained of his family lived in fear of Mikael. Lived under the radar to ensure Mikael did not track them down and burn the city in which they lived.

But the Order had become corrupted over the years, Joshua had written, notes on what Willem had told him of the true origins of the Order founded in the 12th Century, the seed had been planted, nurtured, cultivated, but had somehow taken on a life of its own, spreading, corrupting as it went, until it was unrecognisable.

Giulia was still putting a lot of the pieces together, she had barely had a couple of hours to glance through the last entries of Joshua's journal this morning, but she had read enough; much of the last pages Joshua had written had made her stomach tie itself in knots, full of fear and paranoia, an urgency she recognised in the spiky lettering of Joshua's hastily-scrawled words, a sense of time catching up to him. Joshua had written that he was desperate to get to "the farm". If he could get there, he'd be safer than he was out in the road.

Giulia got the sense Joshua's friends in the Order had turned on him. That he had been loyal to "Will" and his vision, that the others – the alluded-to Abbie included – had become "taken in", obsessional, brainwashed... Who was in charge, she didn't know, that was the beauty of the Order; Joshua hadn't known who was calling the shots. But what she did know was that Joshua had left enough unwitting breadcrumbs for his code-breaker niece, years later, to pick things up and join up the dots. She hadn't had time to go through everything, but in his last days Joshua had received two speeding-tickets on the freeway up to Pennsylvania on top of the parking-tickets; she had calculated the distance between each speeding-ticket, the timings of him receiving them, calculated how fast he had been travelling, and the direction – using the clipped bit of road-map she had narrowed down the area, but Joshua had been smart – he never referenced any particular area, no addresses, only "Will" and "the farm" as if he had feared someone else might be able to put together the trail Giulia was building from hints and her own calculations and her guesses that Willem had set up in Pennsylvania forty years ago after bumping into his eldest brother Elijah in Manhattan.

Further enough from danger but close enough to keep abreast of any developments that could lead to harm.

"…it's all just code," Slater explained, as Giulia almost went flying, perched on the edge of the wheeled chair, which wobbled threateningly beneath her as she peered at the screen, reading the lines of seemingly unintelligible symbols.

"Oh, it's a code? You could've just said that," Giulia smiled, pushing her reading-glasses further up her nose as she leaned forward.

"I forgot, you like codes," Slater smiled fondly, as Giulia nodded. She had never before been interested in computers, her phone was the most complicated thing she could use – but seeing the back-end of the Internet, the way it was written, put things in a brand-new perspective. Giulia was a code-breaker by nature. A morning with Slater and she was reverse-engineering code by sight. The wonder of the 21st Century was the Internet – oh, it had started in the Nineties but it was the dawn of the new millennium which had really caused the Web to take on a life of its own. Anything she wanted to learn could be found on the Internet. So said Slater, and he gave her a taster of what the Internet could do for her – hacking was another talent Giulia could add to her ever-growing list. Again, it was just codes. And Giulia was excellent at those.

Slater chuckled, putting his feet up, watching when she took over the keyboard, glasses on the end of her nose, too distracted typing away to push them back up, as she wrote things. Once she had realised that the Internet was only lines upon lines of code, she lost her apprehension of it. Consumed Slater's hour-long lesson of basic code and ran with it. After the second hour, Slater was on the edge of his seat, watching her, asking questions. He, the tech guru, was learning from her. Her phone kept buzzing with the occasional text, email or phone-call – she ignored Stefan's call when Slater picked up her phone to show her the screen – she had hacked into the Philadelphia Police Department and was searching for any case-files with her uncle's name, had discovered the street address his Impala had received twelve parking tickets decades ago, and on a scrap of paper had hand-drafted a calculation to figure out the most likely place Willem would have settled down after fleeing Elijah, based on the cutting from a Pennsylvania road-map folded and annotated in Joshua's last diary.

"Are you hacking the traffic-control cameras?" Slater asked, and Giulia nodded. "I'm beginning to think introducing you to code was a bad idea."

"That ship has sailed, my friend," Giulia assured him, checking on the facial-recognition programme she had downloaded and upgraded with a few tweaks to the code… She was getting the hang of this thing at an alarming rate. "Hey, Slater…d'you wanna tell me what's wrong?"

"I…" Slater sighed, glancing at Giulia, grimacing guiltily. He cleared his throat and pulled up Facebook. "I, um…didn't realise you were friends…"

Giulia quirked an eyebrow, Friends with…? She sighed, glancing at the screen. Caroline had already posted pictures from the Masquerade on Facebook. She didn't have the same privacy settings Giulia did; friends-of-friends could see her photo albums and Giulia sighed. There was a photograph of the girls smiling, before they had donned their masks; Giulia's diamanté crystals glittered, and Elena for once looked stunning with her makeup done, wearing that flattering emerald dress, hair curled softly and pinned away from her face. It gave her a prettier, softer look than those lifeless curtains of hair she always wore. But without the glistening gold mask she wore in the other photographs, this one showed clearly every feature identical to those of Katerina Petrova.

"Oh."

"So… I may have done something…"

"Oh, crap, what?" Giulia asked, not angry, more filled with dread. Elijah or Klaus? What had Slater done?

When her phone rang again, Stefan's name flashing across the screen, she sighed, pushing her reading-glasses on top of her head to answer the call.

"Hi, Stefan."

"Hey, I've been trying to get hold of you… You haven't seen Elena, have you?"

"Me? No. I haven't seen her since the party," Giulia said, eyeing Slater. "I spent most of yesterday with Tyler and Caroline. Why?"

"Jeremy says her bed hasn't been slept in, he didn't see her all day yesterday," Stefan said, his tone more anxious even than usual.

"Okay, so then she had a slumber-party with Bonnie," Giulia shrugged, although she sighed internally. Elijah's errand, Slater being weird, Elena AWOL.

"Bonnie hasn't seen her, I asked," Stefan said.

"Did you ask Bonnie to perhaps do a locator-spell?" Giulia asked rather tartly, eyeing the numerous screens as Slater tapped away at the keyboard, while she scribbled on a scrap of notebook paper, amending her calculations as she searched through the DMV records of numerous rural towns in Pennsylvania, linked with facial-recognition software she had scanned the photograph into.

"Locator-spell, that's a good idea," Stefan said thoughtfully, and Giulia had to stifle the urge to roll her eyes.

"I'll let you know if I hear from Elena," Giulia said, and Stefan hung up. Giulia sighed, frowning at Slater, who gave her a nervous look. She dialled Elijah's number.

"I'm driving, my dear," was his greeting.

"You're in trouble, is what you are," Giulia said coolly. "Unless you'd care to share with the class."

"I have a feeling you already know," Elijah said easily. "Don't worry."

"Don't worry!" Giulia blurted. "I do worry. Stefan's going to have Bonnie do a locator-spell and he'll come for her."

"One would hope so," Elijah said. "After all his professions of eternal love, I should hope Stefan is willing to risk life and limb to rescue the girl he loves."

"Sad thing is she needs rescuing at all," Giulia sighed.

"My darling, we can't all be Giulia Salvatore," Elijah chuckled drily. "I'd think the world would implode if there was even one more of you." Giulia raised her eyebrows, reflecting on the idea.

"Lucky I'm sleeping with a vampire, there's no possibility of that," Giulia smirked. "Would you perhaps like to earn a gold star or treats and tell me where you are?"

"And ruin the mystery in our relationship?"

"You can sleep in the greenhouse with the vervain for the foreseeable future if you'd like," Giulia said in a fair voice. "Please, enlighten me. Or I'll have more and more phone-calls and texts getting more and more frantic, completely ruining my afternoon. BTW, that means by the way, my new tech guru seems to think I should apply to MIT. Apparently I have a natural talent for code and computer-hacking. Don't make me use my new powers for evil and track your plates."

There was a deep chuckle on the other end of the line. "You don't want me to make it too easy for you, do you? Where would the fun be in that?"

"Fine. Just don't rip off anything that won't grow back." She hung up, turning to Slater with a raised eyebrow, a stern look.

"I…can give you an address," Slater winced. "I'm…not sure you want your friends headed there… Your friend, she's…the means to an end, my contact – they…want to barter with an Original."

"And they're using the doppelgänger," Giulia said fairly. "Well. She's rare currency."

"I've…I've heard Elijah is a man of honour," Slater said quietly. She hadn't said Elijah's name, and he wasn't saved on her phone under his name either, so Slater wouldn't know Elijah the man of honour was the very vampire she had just been talking to, flirting with, did filthy things with her every night.

Slater had given information on Elena to a friend of his, someone who owed a considerable debt to the Original family. As she understood it, they had been on the run from Klaus for five centuries after something had gone terribly wrong. Just about the same length of time Katerina had been running, too. Given they had snatched Elena, Giulia knew this had everything to do with Katerina and the sacrifice. People had learned Katherine had never been in that tomb; that she was in fact still alive, and that she had last been seen in Mystic Falls.

Giulia had been dreading when this would happen. But it had.

Maybe Klaus would hear about it. That was what Elijah wanted. And Giulia had spent all her time since their conversation at the winter solstice to making contingencies for the inevitable. For when someone realised there was a living doppelgänger. That Klaus could lift the spell he had turned into a curse in his own mind.

It had begun.

* * *

 **A.N.** : The worst thing about hostels is the pervasive scent of damp socks… I hope everything where you are is more fragrant, and that you enjoyed the update. Usually I would try to reply to each review but as my wifi is precious and I need it to track changes in my flights, well…priorities and all that grown-up stuff! Now I'm off for my dinner of chocolate-covered raisins. Don't judge! I just slipped over in the communal shower room – elbow, arse and dignity bruised. Luckily I was fully-dressed or that might've been a *bit* awkward!


	22. Sacrifice

**A.N.** : Hi everyone, thank you for being so patient with me.

* * *

 **Dangerous Beauty**

 _22_

 _Sacrifice_

* * *

She bristled, coming brutally into awareness all of a sudden, her foggy head pounding with every step someone carrying her took. She was aware she was being carried – that something chaffed against her wrists, around her ankles. Her feet were bare, her heels long gone, to her short-lived relief. But she felt squished and constricted in the pretty dress Caroline had forced her into, and her face felt clogged up and gross from the makeup she hadn't taken off.

Elena felt like she had the first time she ever had a hangover.

And she felt the same _fear_ she had then. Only, this time she wasn't afraid her parents knew and were going to ground her until she graduated. She was afraid because the dark face she could vaguely see in the gloom of a poorly-lit, abandoned house was not one she recognised.

She remembered leaving the Masquerade. Reinforcing her breakup with Stefan… She needed to know the people she loved were safe, and in a stomach-dipping moment Elena swallowed a churn of nausea that bubbled up in her stomach, where…where was she? Who was this guy?

What was he going to do to her?

What _had_ he done to her?

She'd been walking to her car…

She didn't…except for her head, she didn't _feel_ like anything was wrong. Her body…felt like her body, still. No aches where they shouldn't be any. She swallowed against the nausea induced by panic.

"Please…" she whimpered, squirming in the man's arms. He held her in a way that suggested her weight didn't even bother him. Not a sack of potatoes – maybe a load of folded laundry. An inconvenience but not heavy; with another churn of dread, she noted the rays of sunlight, dust motes whirling idly, and realised whoever was carrying her pointedly avoided those glowing shards of light spearing through a dusty old room. All around her, the scent of amp and closeness, humid and uncomfortable, pressed against her, and she squirmed slightly and tried to peer around her, her head lolling with the effort sapping her strength. Whatever she had been given had clearly been meant to keep her out for a good long while, and keep her docile. What could she do, though?

She was _human_.

She had never taken self-defence classes. She had never stepped foot inside a gym – she wasn't _Giulia_ , she couldn't kick ass at a second's warning, completely confident in her strength and skills. She was Elena. Ninety pounds of shiny hair and that was about it – she was barefoot, in a party-dress and had lost her clutch-purse. She had no cell-phone, no clue where she was, and certain in the knowledge that a vampire had her captive.

Who, though?

Damon had once told her they didn't have any special kind of radar to home in on each other. They didn't all hang out at the local Vamp n' Grill. If another vampire had come to Mystic Falls and been discreet in their feeding habits, there was no way for Stefan or Damon to know there was another vampire in town. And that was why Damon tended to kill other vampires who crossed into his territory – Mystic Falls. It was _his_ ; his home, his hunting-ground. He wouldn't allow other vampires to come in and make a mess of whatever end-game he had. Although, since they had discovered Katherine wasn't in the tomb, Elena wondered what was keeping Damon in town. She'd thought he'd told Stefan he'd leave town since Katherine wasn't in Mystic Falls.

Giulia had killed the other vampires desiccating in the tomb. Disposed of the ones who had tortured Stefan for information on Katherine – Elena was still pissed at Giulia for drugging her, but even she knew there was little Elena could do against a horde of angry vampires. She hadn't had Giulia's training, and she wasn't about to ask Giulia for any. They'd reached a certain point in their relationship – the night the Gilbert device had gone off, nearly killing Stefan, Damon and half their friends, the night Caroline had been put in the hospital because of Tyler – and Elena didn't think there was any coming back from it. Giulia seemed to have made her choice. She didn't want to be friends with them anymore – with her or Bonnie.

And, much as she hated to admit it, right now Elena could really have used a friend like Giulia to get her out of this. She'd know what was going on – would figure out what happened, where Elena was, who had her, why, and how to get her out safe. She and Jeremy had flicked onto an episode of _Criminal Minds_ the other night and both agreed that if Giulia didn't wind up the head of a crime syndicate, she'd make an amazing profiler. Hell, she'd probably get away with being both.

Elena couldn't even fight off an attacker who'd drugged her from the front. She could just imagine Giulia's withering look, her eye-roll as she reached back to braid her hair away from her face, gearing up for immediate action, enacting a seamless plan she and Damon could come up with in moments.

"Please," she whispered again, as footsteps echoed off the still air, and she gasped as she lurched out of the guy's arms, onto a faded old velvet chaise. She drew her knees up instinctively, hugging them, and stared around the room frantically. Huge windows boarded up, greenery pushing its way through the cracks in the walls and broken windows, old furniture piled high with fat books. She didn't have much experience with them, but she'd guess this wasn't a crackhouse. The floor was dusty, a few leaves scattered about, and a few books piled here and there but there were no battered mattresses, no used needles or little packets of foil. She would hazard a guess vampires wouldn't find junkies tolerable as roommates, or very tasty to snack on. And they made poor vampires – they had learned that the hard way through Vicki Donovan.

So…poor vampires? She had always kind of assumed most vampires had money. Like Stefan and Damon. Maybe some of them weren't clever enough to make investments. Maybe they just didn't care. Giulia would say half the vampires alive were old enough to remember the New World being discovered; their life-experiences were very different to what Elena's was. Cleanliness and hygiene had come into play only in the last couple of centuries, if that.

Or this place was only a temporary base. _No_ , Elena thought. She wasn't Giulia but she still had powers of observation; the books. The Salvatores kept theirs in a polished library with a roaring fire, a fully-stocked bar and plush leather seats. Whoever these vampires were, they kept their library stacked on table-tops, wide-open with pages fluttering in an invisible breeze.

"Trevor?!" a voice called through the empty halls, and Elena jumped, glancing frantically around the room, at the man in the dark jeans and hoodie, casually throwing off a pair of huge sunglasses so they clattered on a table piled high with old-looking books. Some were leather-bound, some looked like they were modern novels with colourful paperback bindings.

"In the ballroom!" _Trevor_ called back, eyeing her with a kind of guarded curiosity, digging his hands into his hoodie-pockets and glancing up as a woman appeared at the top of the dilapidated split-staircase. Spiky brunette hair fanned from an oval face, and Elena could see even in the dim light that she was very pretty, perfect almond-shaped eyes that were hazel or green – she flinched instinctively and darted forward out of a shard of light that illuminated her features, before she could start to burn. Her eyes were hazel, her cheekbones high and her lips were pretty. She had clear, milky skin and the light danced off a braided necklace of diamantes, suede-cord and delicate chains; compared to _Trevor_ she seemed to take more care in her appearance, with fitted dark jeans and a cognac leather jacket that Elena admitted to herself she really liked. Low-heeled boots clicked softly on the dusty floor, and she moved slowly, as if more from habit than wanting to lull Elena into a feeling of safety. She was _elegant_ , Elena realised. Even hissing away from the sunlight, even with her spiky hair, her chain necklace and jeans, there was an elegance to her movements that seemed out of place with her surroundings, her outfit. Another vampire.

She swallowed, and wished they couldn't hear her heartbeat thumping frantically away against her ribcage.

"My God, you look just like her," the woman said, her voice soft, almost musical. She was English. Elena had seen the colour of her pretty hazel eyes and it may have just been her panic, but Elena swore she saw them glow with interest as the woman stared at her.

"What do you want with me?" Elena asked quietly, glancing at the woman through her lashes, fear spiking through her. The guy wasn't the dangerous one, he didn't seem to care what was going on. But this woman…she seemed clear-headed and cool. And she knew Elena wasn't Katherine…

"But I'm not – Please, whatever you – I'm not –" Elena stammered. Everyone wanted Katherine. And she had the poor luck to share the psychotic vampire's face. Share was a generous word – from the way Damon and Stefan spoke about her, she was sure Katherine wouldn't hesitate to rip Elena's face off, so vain she'd never stand to have someone look exactly like her.

"Be quiet," the vampire said sharply, glancing at her.

"But I'm not Katherine!" Elena said plaintively, climbing off the sofa, aware that without her heels she was a good few inches shorter than the woman. Vampirism aside, Elena would be no match for her. "My name is Elena Gilbert. You don't have to do this."

"I know who you are, I said be quiet," the woman all but hissed.

"What do you want with me?" Elena persisted, utterly confused.

She blacked out before she hit the couch, the backhanded hit coming out of nowhere so fast her mind couldn't even register it.

* * *

Rosemary sighed. "I want you to be quiet," she said coolly, turning on her heel to leave the room, safe in the knowledge the doppelgänger would not be going anywhere very soon. Not in ripped hose and a party-dress. The benefits of the isolated locale would forever be tainted by the drawbacks, the constant reminder – they remained in the shadows, hiding in the deep countryside or vast cities, never settling, never getting close to too many people, never trusting they would not be betrayed… The Originals' grid of information was not quite the Internet but they had their methods. She had heard through the grapevine that only Niklaus and Elijah remained conscious – whispers of the hedonist cousin Kol in New Orleans persisted, but with the civil war simmering down there, news was distorted at best, and it would be months before the final tallies were made.

At least it was Elijah.

None of the others would have cared. The message she had sent out was worth far too much for even an Original to ignore – she was surprised they had had the fortune to secure the doppelgänger, her face was on _social-media_ , for heaven's sake! Weighing the Salvatore brothers into the mix gave the whole thing a little more clarity, they protected her without ever knowing. Rose and Trevor, they were two of perhaps a handful still living who knew the doppelgänger by sight – and knew the truth behind the myths that had persisted for a thousand years. In his rage, she had heard Klaus had destroyed the estate his family had lived in, in Hampshire, in the 1490s… Talk about hedonism. Oh, she had loved it. Not Klaus, he had always been too smug, too arrogant – but Elijah, he was always the surprising one. And he had always been kind to her, in a very unkind time.

Just once in the last five centuries their paths had crossed. Rather, she had seen him from a distance and put as many miles between them over the next few weeks as possible. Elijah's face was not one she was ever likely to forget – and Elijah had a long memory. He would not forget her part in Katerina's escape.

They had this one chance to ask his forgiveness for it.

And even that had always seemed beyond all hope.

The doppelgänger was a game-changer, whatever she said her name was. To Rose, for Trevor, to Elijah and the other Originals, she was merely a means to an end. Sad as it was, this was not Rose's first rodeo where the doppelgänger was concerned.

Katerina had come to her door, innocent and frightened, gasping for breath and bleeding in the sunlight. Rose could still remember the heat of it through the crack in the door, the perfume of the honeysuckle trailing over the cottage, the brief glimpse of fluffy white clouds and a gentle honeyed breeze through the leaves of the wood.

For five hundred years, long before the game had been invented, Rose had tortured herself with the game _What If_? What if she had simply bound Katerina, or concussed her until nightfall could come? What if she had refused the girl entry into her home, sent her on her way into the woods. What if she had let the girl bleed out while carrying her through the woods to the manor-house? Perhaps she might have been granted a life in the sun for stopping the doppelgänger's escape.

Did she feel bad, for the purpose for which Katherine had been kept like a princess in that great house? Certainly not. Five hundred years ago the world had been an unrecognisable place. Full of violence and blood and rape, disease and hunger and constant war. Serfdom, slavery had been the norm, social hierarchy very strict, feminism non-existent. Katerina had been known as a ward with a little money and no English family that she could speak of, and was getting old at eighteen, unmarried, in a time when brides of twelve were married off for dowries that could build modern cities.

While Trevor unravelled, his fear tangible on the stagnant air, she had to maintain at least the appearance of being calm and collected for both their sakes. If he got the message she'd have a legitimate Viking warlord on her doorstep in a matter of hours, ready to either pardon them or carve out the blood-eagle…a punishment she remembered Klaus describing centuries ago, the harshest execution _his_ father had ever meted out on an enemy in front of their entire community as a warning.

* * *

"…you know how this works," she sighed, several hours later. The waiting-game was getting on her nerves, and Trevor's were already fried. If she had to snap his neck to keep her friend here, to receive either absolution or meet their fates, she would.

"Did you or did you not get the message to Elijah?" Trevor asked, more agitated than she had seen him in decades. Over the centuries he had become incredibly blasé, irreverent, he had seen it all.

"They say he got it," Rose shrugged, reorganising the books, placing those she wished to keep on a pile. They accumulated so many; she tended to keep ten favourites from each decade and the rest she collected, read and passed on. Exquisite literature deserved to be shared, not hoarded; she had come from a time when women were seldom educated at all, and appreciated _education_ , using the fortune she had accumulated and yet never used to fund scholarships to deserving, underprivileged girls.

"Wonderful. And, what?" Trevor prompted, gripping his arms tightly across his chest, a sure sign of stress. The moment he started biting her nails she'd know he was at his limit.

"So, that's it, Trevor," Rose said calmly. "He either got it or he didn't. We just have to wait." They had only been waiting five-hundred years for an opportunity like this – Trevor had been sceptical, weighing the risks as too great; Rose had pushed aside whatever feelings of dread, guilt and fear might have gotten in her way to get things done, set things in motion. They were lucky in their friends, taking more care now than they had back then… Trevor was her best-friend, her partner through half a millennium – but his judgement was clouded when it came to pretty women with an exotic flair and she'd be damned if she let his soft heart ruin them again. She was relieved to see all vestiges of his softness for Katerina had been eradicated in the last five centuries, unmoved by the doppelgänger's resemblance to her.

"Look, it's not too late, we can leave her here!" Trevor blurted anxiously. "We don't _have_ to go through with this!"

"I'm sick of running," Rose said sharply, enunciating every word. They had had this argument dozens of times since Slater sent them the photo that had set the ball rolling.

"Yeah? Well, _running_ keeps us from _dying_ ," Trevor exclaimed.

"Elijah's old-school," Rose said sternly. "If he accepts our deal, we're free." The doppelgänger was too precious to pass up, even for an Original. He would accept their deal; he would _indulge_ them their offer. He had never been the kind to get blood all over him, too conscious of how much expense and effort went into his wardrobe – a nobleman from an ancient time and a frozen place where cloth had been worth more than gold. Distracted by their argument, she let the muffled, timid footsteps of the girl grow closer, almost to the door before she finally addressed them – cruel, to let her get so far, indulge her hope, and take it.

She'd have to get used to it.

"You!" She strode forward, aware that Trevor clenched his jaw, gripped the doorframe until the ancient paint powered to the floor and over his black sweater sleeve, before ducking out of eyesight – where he could no longer set eyes on the doppelgänger. "There's nothing around here for miles. If you think you're getting out of here, you're tragically wrong, understand?"

"Who's Elijah?" the girl asked, her heartbeat hammering in Rose's ears.

"He's your worst nightmare." No point sugar-coating it. She'd see first-hand soon – hopefully. Just what they were dealing with. Why this had all been a necessary evil. She had nothing against the girl – less than Trevor, who loathed her on sight for being a living, breathing double of the girl who had betrayed him – but she was old, and tired. She wanted to retire somewhere pretty with some horses and invite friends for cocktail-parties, nurture a vegetable-garden and teach children… Of course, in all of those scenarios she was bathed in gorgeous sunlight, and even she didn't have enough nerve to try and wrangle daylight-jewellery out of Elijah.

Asking for their freedom was more than enough.

For now.

She kept herself busy, organising their books, listening all the while – to Trevor, pacing and muttering to himself, the sharp clip of him biting his thumbnail; to the girl, wandering what had once been a pretty ballroom with a dilapidated chandelier on the dusty floor and a moth-eaten sofa. She quirked an eyebrow, listening to the girl's footsteps getting closer; she had got bold, realising they wouldn't hurt her any more than Rose smacking her for the sake of some peace and quiet. She didn't quite seem to grasp that Rose was more than happy to smack her again; she started asking questions.

"Why am I here?"

"You keep asking me questions like I'm going to answer them," Rose said, striding across the dusty room to pick up an old canvas. Not pretty, but useful to block the sun's rays. They couldn't have found a doppelgänger in London? At least she'd have been able to go and do some decent shopping – there were bookstores on every street and she had a fascination with Indian food, Royal Academy Summer Exhibitions and Liberty William Morris prints and was a 'friend' of the Royal Opera House with special treats in thanks for her donations. London was _never_ dull even in torrential rain. It never had been.

"Why won't you?" the girl asked.

"There's another one!" Rose chuckled, placing the frame over an open window, blocking the light.

"You got me," the girl said. "Okay? It's not like I can go anywhere. The least you can do is tell me what you want with me."

"I personally want nothing," Rose said honestly. "I'm just a delivery service."

"Delivery to who? Elijah?" the girl prompted. Rose laughed.

"Two points to the eavesdropper."

"Who is he?" the girl asked. "Is he a vampire?"

"He's one of _the_ vampires, an Original," Rose sighed, combing through faded titles on the spines of books. She had turned a lamp on more for the girl's benefit than her own, shedding light on the precarious floorboards the termites had feasted on for decades.

"What do you mean, an Original?" the girl asked behind her.

"Again with the questions. Haven't the Salvatores been teaching you your vampire-history?" she asked, flicking through the pages of a book Slater had asked her to find in her collection. He had made a new friend…

"So you know Stefan and Damon?"

"I know _of_ them," Rose clarified. "A hundred years back a friend of mine tried to set me up with Stefan. She said he was one of the good ones. More of a sucker for the bad boys though, but I digress. Anyway, I'm surprised your friend Giulia Salvatore hasn't told you the genesis of the vampire race."

"Giulia and I aren't really friends anymore," the girl said in a clipped voice, her tone that of muted spite.

"That's a shame," Rose sighed softly, adding a couple of books to her pile. "From what I've heard, everyone needs a friend like Giulia Salvatore in their lives."

" _Who_ are the Originals?" the girl asked forcefully. Rose closed the faded hardback cover of the book she had been flipping through, turning to the girl. She really was tiny – she remembered Katerina Petrova having more to her, but then they had worn so many more layers back then, everything embellished, heavily embroidered. Silks, velvets…oh, the pearls. She still had a string of them, dainty Scotch pearls from an old lover, with exquisite gold filigree work. Sometimes she would lie them on the windowsill in a beam of sunlight and watch the way the gold warmed, glinting, and the pearls gleaming softly like milky stars. Few of her things from her human life had followed her into her vampire existence; the rope of filigree and pearls, a delicate embossed pomander and a posy ring hiding an ancient promise.

She had been a young vampire when Katerina Petrova appeared at her door. The pearls had still been her most prized possession, but she had been learning how to take the finer things she desired with her newfound powers. The human Katerina had been treated like a princess when she appeared in Hampshire, fresh from the Continent and the religious wars plaguing her home-country. Clothes, jewels, a beautiful mare Rose had envied – it wasn't until they discovered her part in Klaus' ritual that she had realised they were just trussing a corpse. The girl was as good as dead – she imagined to this day that it had been Elijah who insisted on treating the girl well, rather than lock her in a cellar until the next full-moon.

There must be death: Elijah had once told Rose that _cruelty_ was a last resort.

"Trevor and I have been running for five-hundred years," she said, unemotional. "We're tired. We want it over. We're using you to negotiate ourselves out of an old mess."

"But why _me_?" the girl asked.

"Because you're a Mikaelson doppelänger," Rose said quietly. "You're the key to breaking the curse."

"Curse?" the girl frowned. Then something seemed to click. "The Sun and the Moon Curse?"

"So you _do_ know your history," Rose said, raising an eyebrow.

"What do you mean, I'm the key?" the girl asked, frowning still. "The moonstone is what breaks the curse."

"No," Rose said, _Clearly doesn't know as much as she thinks she does_ , she thought. "The moonstone is what _binds_ the curse. _Sacrifice_ is what breaks it."

"Sacrifice?"

"The blood of the doppelgänger," Rose said, not sugar-coating it. She should at least know what she was getting herself in for, for no other reason than being born who she was. " _You're_ the doppelgänger. Which means, in order to break the curse, you're the one that has to die." She couldn't believe the Salvatore brothers hadn't told her; but then again, they were still babies, and from the New World. They wouldn't _know_ about the Curse. Lexi would know about it, of course – and Rose wondered very much how her loyalty to Stefan had superseded her devotion to Elijah, her sire.

The girl's face fell, dawning realising horrifying her.

Footsteps approached, and Rose glanced past the girl at Trevor. He looked less on-edge than he had when he had slipped away at the mere sight of the girl, but he still wasn't himself. His fingernails had suffered for his stress.

"Tell me more," the girl demanded on a sigh.

"Captivity's made her pushy, eh?" Trevor smirked. "What d'you wanna know, Doppelicious?"

"Who are you running from?"

"The Originals."

"Yeah, she said that," the girl said negligently. "What does that _mean_?"

"The first family," Trevor said, punting a book with his toe so the girl jumped, shying away. "The Old World. Rose and I pissed 'em off –"

"Un-uh," Rose interjected.

"Correction – _I_ pissed them off; Rose had my back; and for over half a millennium they've wanted us dead," Trevor amended, and Rose smiled, nodding. He tossed a slim red hardback at the girl's feet, making her jump.

"What did you do?" Trevor gave her a pointed look.

"He made the same mistake countless others did," Rose said ambivalently, until the girl glanced up at her. "He trusted Katerina Petrova."

"Katherine," the girl breathed.

"Mm. The one and only," Rose said, tamping down whatever emotion she felt. "The first Mikaelson doppelgänger."

"I helped her escape her fate," Trevor expanded, flicking through a pile of books. "And now I – sorry, _we_ – have been marked ever since."

"Which is why we're not going to make the same mistake again!" Rose called. Trevor set another book down roughly, striding past the girl a little too closely for her comfort, and they heard the girl's heart thudding as they strode away. Rose went to the room she had claimed as her bedchamber, starting to pack. If things went south they had mere seconds to escape. And Elijah Mikaelson would have the benefit of the sun – they should have called the meeting for sunset but…well, she knew Elijah would show up when and _if_ he chose to.

She had put her books in the car – tinted windows, lots of space to lug everything around as they moved continuously, poor miles per gallon; they had spent fifty years travelling the US after exhausting themselves in Asia, trying to evade Kol and the exquisitely terrifying Lagertha, the lesser of the Original evils – and gathered her carpet-bag and boots from the ballroom where the girl sat curled on the sofa, blood rushing through her veins so quickly it was making Rose thirsty.

"He's here!" Trevor blurted frantically, skimming down the split staircase that had once been very grand. "This was a mistake!"

"No, I told you I would get us out of this," Rose said sternly, voice calm, glad no heartbeat would betray her to Elijah. "You have to trust me."

"No! He wants me dead, Rose!" Trevor blurted.

"He wants _her_ more," Rose said soothingly.

"I can't do this! You give her to him! He'll have mercy on you, but I have to get out of here!" Trevor exclaimed, wild-eyed, rubbing his palms on his jeans.

"Hey!" Rose said, grabbing his forearms in her hands, catching his eye. Just a look, and he was already calming down. "What are we?"

Trevor took a few deep, calming breaths, nodding. "We're family. Forever." Rose nodded, smiling. If this worked… _Freedom_. She had never tasted it – too soon after her transition she had learned there was no reprieve from rigid social hierarchy even in death. What would she do, when she no longer had to keep looking over her shoulder?

A pounding knock echoed through the dilapidated halls, and the girl behind them breathed, disbelievingly, " _You're scared_."

Rose glanced from her to Trevor, all steely resolve, squashing any misgivings. She had to do this. It was the only way. They couldn't keep going like this; she was so tired.

"Stay here with her. And don't make a sound," she said warningly, more for the girl than Trevor.

Her footsteps echoed through the empty house, light from cheap bulbs casting shadows from precarious towers of books and the skeletal remains of chandeliers and expensive furniture. A creaking groan muffled her footsteps as she approached the foyer; the front-door was opening seemingly of its own accord. No living being lived here; their guest could have invited himself in.

 _Ever the gentleman_ , she thought fleetingly, her stomach disappearing with dread. Sunlight she couldn't step into washed over half the foyer as the peeling door groaned open, her eyes dazzled by the painful light leaving nothing but a crisp shadow on the threshold. She stepped down into the foyer in the safety of the shadows.

He looked handsome and terrifying as ever – exquisite Italian-cut suit, spotless. Savile Row. Shining chestnut hair neatly combed and glinting in a hundred different hues picked out by the sun, gold and copper and garnet mixed in with the chocolate, mahogany and whisky. Gloriously expensive Italian-leather shoes. Cufflinks glinting subtly. The hint of a pocket-scarf and an understated tie. Legitimate _Omega_ watch. An almost dainty, very ancient ring on his middle-finger set with a tiny blue stone more precious to a vampire than any diamond. Cheekbones that could cut glass and that _jaw_. Dark eyes that were like whisky mixed with dark chocolate, warm and kind and lethal at the same time. Of all the Originals she had met, Elijah terrified her the most. Beneath that exquisite exterior and despite his charm, he was the most dangerous of them.

Just the sight of him on her doorstep froze the breath in her lungs, made her stomach evaporate, her heart clench painfully. Elijah Mikaelson. Old-school classy, formidable, exquisitely terrifying. _He_ was a _vampire_.

He was everything modern pop-culture had forgotten their species had once been depicted as. Charming, timeless and above all, dangerous.

"Rosemary," he said cordially, and he was almost smiling as she swallowed nervously. Nobody had called her that in years. _Centuries_. Five-hundred years of running from this man didn't make it easy to shake the dread and fear curdling her last meal in her stomach, but despite her fear she was thrown back centuries to another time, a simpler life, a family whole and human.

This modern look suited him better than any she might have imagined him wearing the last few centuries, always on the alert for him or one of his siblings. Elegant, meticulous, deceptively simple.

"Is there somewhere we can talk?" he asked politely.

"Yes," she breathed out a sigh. Relief; he hadn't killed her yet. That he was willing to discuss things with her was a positive sign. "In here. Please forgive the house."

"Oh, what's a little dirt?" Elijah said negligently. They had _both_ grown up in little more than glorified huts, and the both knew it. At one time, too long ago and too briefly to matter now, they had been lovers. Elijah, the calm, gentle one, the intriguing brother – what a surprise he had been. Delicious, she remembered. "I completely understand." He reached behind him, closing the door, and she followed him into the side-chamber, where a shard of sunlight speared through the air, dust-motes whirling idly where he disturbed them to lift the cover of a book on a pile on a time-savaged piano.

"So, tell me. What is it that gives you the courage to contact me?" Elijah asked idly, as if he was almost _bored_. Bored was better than murderous, she'd take his indifference any day.

"I wanted my freedom," Rose said honestly. "I'm tired of running. You in a position to grant me that?"

"I have complete authority to grant pardon to you and your little pet – what is his name these days? Trevor. – if I so see fit," Elijah said idly.

"Katerina Petrova," Rose said, all but holding her breath. Elijah closed the book and turned to her, his expression mild.

"I'm listening." He draped himself oh so elegantly on the only whole chair in the room, as if he was just waiting for someone to bring him a cocktail and cigar.

"She didn't burn in the church in 1864."

"Continue."

"She survived."

"Where is she?"

"You don't seem surprised by this," Rose said softly, disappointed. If he wasn't surprised, that meant he already knew – that meant the value of her leverage was dwindling by the second.

"Oh, when you contacted me and invited me to this armpit of civilisation, which is a mere three hours from the town we know as Mystic Falls, I surmised this had everything to do with Katerina," Elijah said, and Rose stifled a wince at the backhanded insult. He was a master of passive-aggression – his brother Klaus? He was just _malicious_ -aggressive. He gave her a gentle, almost teasing smile. "Do you have her in your possession?"

"No. But I have better. I have another doppelgänger."

"That's impossible," Elijah said, brushing her off. "The Petrova line died out years ago, I know this for a fact."

"Nature will always make contingencies for what has been made to be destroyed. _You_ taught me that," Rose said gently.

"Well, show her to me," Elijah challenged her, smiling gently.

"Elijah… You're a man of honour, you're to be trusted…" Rose said anxiously, swallowing as she stepped forward hesitantly, gazing at him, entranced. He was the flame; she, the moth. "But I want to hear you say it again."

He gave her that tiny, taunting smile again. "You have my word that I will pardon you."

Rose gazed at him a second more, and nodded, gesturing for him to follow her. Strangely, she felt almost embarrassed to show her through the crumbling halls, the bare lightbulbs flickering slightly, plaster and ancient wallpaper on the termite-brutalised floor… She remembered the great stately home in Hampshire that had been filled to the rafters with fine art, antiques even for the 1400s, beautiful people, expensive furnishings, the first feather bed she had ever slept in, the _clothes_ and those diamonds his youngest sister used to thread through her glorious hair, the exquisite rose-garden she used to indulge at dusk when the great house blocked the sun's rays. She remembered that place, glowing with candlelight, expensive oil paintings glistening on the walls, perfumed ladies gliding through the corridors, the _library_ and the hand-carved four-poster bed that told the stories of his gods… Galling, to have to throw her shoulders back in this place like she was proud of it as her home.

The girl was pacing. A piece of paper crumpled in her hand, her heartbeat thrumming fast as a hummingbird's, she could smell fear and sweat – not just hers, Trevor's too, and she glanced over her shoulder as Elijah paused at the top of the split staircase, gazing down into the ballroom, his expression now careful, shrewd, frowning. Hiding any amazement.

In a second he was gone, down to the girl, whose gasp lingered on the close air inside the room, jumping back. She looked tinier and frail behind him, a dark elegant slash amid the debris. He leaned in closer, the girl barely took a breath as dark eyes gazed imploringly over his shoulder at Rose, who stood frozen, powerless to do anything but wait for the verdict.

"Human. It's impossible," Elijah said softly. Rose didn't see his expression, but could imagine the tiny smile on his face as he said gently, "Hello, there." Rose glanced down at Trevor, who dared briefly to glance her way and give her one tangible expression of relief mingled with terror, before Elijah spoke again. "Well, we have a long journey ahead of us, we should be going." As if they had just stopped by for tea.

"Please, don't let him take me!" the girl whimpered, her voice tremulous and so _young_. One thing Rose could say about Katerina, she had never _sounded_ young. Even when they had known her, she had lost any innocence.

"One last piece of business," Elijah said softly. "Then we're done." He turned to Trevor, who barely lifted his eyes from the felled chandelier to glance at the equivalent of the vampire king.

"I've waited so long for this day, Elijah," he admitted. "I'm truly very sorry."

"Oh, no, your apology's not necessary," Elijah said blithely.

"Yes, it is," Trevor breathed. "You trusted me with Katerina…and I failed you."

"Well, yes, you are the guilty one. Rosemary aided you because she was loyal to you – _that_ , I honour… Where was your loyalty?"

"I _beg_ your forgiveness," Trevor breathed, every fibre in his being sincere. For a moment, Elijah regarded him.

"So granted," he said, his voice so gentle. In one swift, unexpected motion, a practiced slash, and Elena was still fixed on the disbelieving look of relief on Trevor's face as his body crumpled to the dusty floor, blood seeping over the pages of the books scattered about – his head had thumped halfway across the room, completely detached.

* * *

"Text." Damon fidgeted in his seat, plucking his phone out of his pocket. The drawback of a vintage muscle car was the lack of _Bluetooth_ connectivity to channel his calls through the car. "It's from Giulia. Oh."

"What?" Stefan asked, his panic ratcheting up with every mile Damon added to his odometer. "What is it? Did she find something?"

"Guess so," Damon mused. "It's an address. Hey, get the road map out."

"Road map? Screw that, I'll use my phone," Stefan frowned, tapping away at his cell-phone like the seventeen-year-old guy he masqueraded as, feeding the address Giulia had texted Damon into the search.

"You've got an app for that," Damon sneered, rolling his eyes. Stefan heaved a sigh, butting his head back against the headrest. His cell-phone screen was black. Damon smiled sweetly, reaching back behind the front-passenger seat to retrieve the battered road map book, dropping it in his baby-bro's lap. "Have fun."

"Damon – this is from 1987!" Stefan growled, and Damon chuckled.

"Come on, you gotta work for it!" Damon laughed, taunting, "Nothing worth having ever came easy!"

"Who d'you think took her?" Stefan asked, keeping his voice curious rather than paranoid and on the verge of a total psychotic break unleashing the Ripper. Full on Jekyll and Hyde, his baby-bro.

"Someone from Katherine's past; she said she was running from someone," Damon shrugged unconcernedly. Truthfully, he could pretend to be in this only for Elena's sake just to get a rise out of his brother, but deep down, Damon had lost any interest in pursuing the girl who had in one instant reminded him so strongly of Katherine's betrayal. Manipulating him for information like he was her toy. _You two have a lot more in common than just your looks_ , he'd told her, and he'd meant it. Katerina had been born in the 1470s, in a country torn apart by religious warfare; Elena was the sheltered version, used to getting her own way. He added sceptically, "Maybe they got the wrong girl."

"Thank you for helping me," Stefan said sombrely.

"Can we _not_ do the whole road-trip bonding thing?" Damon scowled. "The cliché of it all makes me itch."

"Oh, come on, Damon," Stefan sighed. "We both know that you being in this car has nothing to do with me anyway." Damon quirked an eyebrow.

"The elephant in the car lets out a mighty roar!"

"Well, it doesn't have to be an elephant – let's talk about it," Stefan suggested casually. He'd been spoiling for a fight, for _action_ , ever since they had all realised Elena was _gone_.

"There's nothin' to talk about," Damon assured him. _Once bitten, twice shy_ , he thought tiredly. He'd not be going down that road again. He would have to be the stupidest guy in the world – he was a lot of things: stupid wasn't one.

"That's not true! Sure there is!" Stefan blurted. "Let's get it out. I mean, are you in this car because you wanna help your little brother save the girl he loves, or is it – is it because you love her too? Hm? Express yourself! I happen to like road-trip bonding."

"Keep it up, Stefan. I can step out of helping as easy as I stepped in," Damon warned, uncomfortable with the topic.

"Nope. See, that's the beauty of it," Stefan said smugly, smiling at him. "You can't."

Damon quirked an eyebrow, jerked on the wheel and stamped on the brake and clutch, knocking the gearstick into neutral as Stefan lurched in his seat, dark eyebrows lowering dangerously as he braced a hand against the dash. "What the hell?!"

"See, Stefan, it's like this. In all honesty I thought I had a thing for Elena – she showed me exactly who she is under those fluttering eyelashes and all I can see now when I look at her is a more demure Katherine, who, coincidentally, I _loathe_ , because she treated the both of us, and especially me, like crap," Damon said warningly. They should just get this all out in the open once and for all, put his brother in his place and set the record straight for anyone who even _cared_ what he felt and for whom. His private personal feelings were just that – _his_. But his baby-bro _loved_ exposition and it was either listen to him passive-aggressively allude to the fact he knew Damon had made a move on his girl, or have a full-on brawl at the side of the dusty highway.

"Now you can _accept_ that I was the only one in town who can actually contribute to any rescue-attempt without turning into a liability, and is willing to get their hands dirty to get the end-result we all want, and _wants_ to be here to make sure you didn't get the heart yanked out of your chest, and quit acting like a little bitch. _Or_ I dump your ass on the side of the road and you can hitchhike and find your ladylove, because you are _not_ taking my map-book with you." '87 had been a good year. "I get it; you're hero-hair over heels for this girl and believe _everyone_ in their right minds should be too, but to be honest she's almost as big a bore as you and _that_ is saying something, my friend, ever since you detoxed. And I won't be manipulated again, certainly not by a faded, mediocre copy of the same girl. _Not_ happening… So, satisfied? Am I putting this thing back in gear or are you thumbing your way to Satan's Ass Crack, Middle-of-Nowhere?"

Stefan sighed heavily, but didn't answer. Didn't fling open his door, so Damon shrugged as his brother did that annoying scoffing thing he did when Stef couldn't think of any witty retort for a life-altering, uncomfortable truth, and put the car back in gear.

"I'm not a bore," Stefan muttered sullenly half an hour later. Damon laughed, and kept driving.

* * *

Blood oozed all over the dusty floor, seeping into some of the books strewn there, and the terrifyingly cool vampire Rose's wordless exclamation of shock, grief and anger all mingled into one as she collapsed down the stairs, tears sparkling in her eyes.

There wasn't a speck of blood on Elijah the Original's suit.

"Don't, Rose," Elijah said softly, giving an odd sort of movement that spoke of…discomfort, "now that you are free." Elena stood breathless with terror, needing a restroom, her eyes burning for the brutal death of this man who had kidnapped her, for his friend now crying, distracted as the immaculate and horrifyingly calm Elijah held out a hand to Elena, as if requesting the next dance. "Come."

"What about the moonstone?" Elena blurted, hand fluttering at her throat, as if that might protect her.

"What do you know about the moonstone?" Elijah said sharply. The girl was so slender, so frail. All doe-eyes peering through unnaturally straight curtains of dark hair, Katerina's opposite in demeanour as much as she was a match in looks.

"I know that you n-need it, and I know where it is," the girl stammered breathlessly.

"Yes." A stubborn set appeared around the girl's jaw, her eyes hardening a little.

"I can help you get it."

"Tell me where it is."

"It doesn't work that way," the girl said. Elijah raised an eyebrow, crossing his arms over his chest and glancing at Rose.

"Are you _negotiating_ with me?" He sounded almost _amused_ , Elena thought.

"It's the first I've heard of it," Rose said sharply, her face crumpling as she wiped tears from her cheeks the second Elijah looked away. If Elijah felt a stab of sympathy he pummelled it into his long-abused heart for later perusal. Emotions were an indulgence he craved and rarely let himself give in to. The last few weeks had been an anomaly. And strangely, it was the first time he had ever entered into anything of the like with both parties completely aware of the dangers.

Then he caught the girl's dark gaze intently, and after a second, smiled to himself.

" _Aaah_ ," he said softly, using a pinkie-finger to lift the silver chain from which an ancient, familiar pendant dangled, reeking of a plant he forever associated with making love to his wife on their old straw mattress, his mother's hearth, the scent of his children's hair as they cuddled around him, tiny little warm bodies wriggling annoyingly – what he wouldn't give to experience that again.

He had seen it in photographs on the Internet – wasn't social-media a wonderful thing?! – but to see it, draped around this girl's slender neck, a human doppelgänger wearing the pendant his sister had kept with her for a thousand years – brutally confirmed what he had suspected.

Doppelgänger or not, key to breaking Niklaus' curse or not, his sister would have torn the girl to pieces if she had ever caught a glimpse of her wearing _her_ pendant.

His expression sobered, wondering _how_ … "Where did you get that?"

The girl didn't answer; he snapped the clasp of the chain without effort and tucked the pendant in an inside jacket-pocket, mind already spinning with the possibilities of using the pendant. It had a very long history, and deep ties with Rebekah.

He might be able to use one to find the other.

He gripped the girl by the back of the neck, drawing her closer, and she was powerless to evade his questions without the protection of vervain the pendant had been laced with.

"Tell me where the moonstone is," he ordered.

"I think Giulia has it," the girl said dreamily.

"Giulia Salvatore," Elijah smiled. _Moves and counter-moves_ , he thought to himself. This would make the game more interesting. So she had been playing for weeks now, while he had been waiting to make his first move. "Now, I've heard of her. Why should she have the moonstone?"

"Mason Lockwood had it. He got it for Katherine. I think Mason gave the moonstone to Giulia when he left Mystic Falls," the girl sighed.

" _Interesting_ ," Elijah said thoughtfully. That she suspected Giulia had it made things more interesting; she most likely did. And Giulia Salvatore was the wiliest, most creative mind he had ever encountered – he said that; she wasn't malicious, paranoid and destructive like his brother and so he could not compare the two, but Giulia was indisputably genius. Trying to figure out where she might hide it would be futile; his best move was to seduce, tease, torment the information out of her – even then, he suspected she wouldn't be wholly honest. She'd never divulge so much that she became expendable, hyper-aware of the situation and her tenuous position in it.

"And where is Katherine now?" he asked, wondering what she knew.

"I think Giulia killed her." Elijah chuckled softly. Despite her declaration to Rose earlier that they were not friends, this girl still had enough faith in Giulia's abilities that she suspected her capable of putting a half-millennium-old nuisance in her place. But she underestimated Giulia: They could always kill their enemies, but they couldn't bring them back. And Katerina had made such a delightful adversary over the last five centuries; why ruin the possibility of the game starting again? Something to look forward to…

* * *

She jerked awake in the living-room, wearing her pyjamas, her reading-glasses still propped at the end of her nose and the corner of her hardback research book digging painfully into her breast, draped with a blanket and Firenze purring in his sleep across her feet, disoriented and groggy and a little too warm, hyper-aware that _something_ had woken her.

Footsteps. Peering blearily through the dim amber light, she fidgeted, letting her books fall with a thunk onto the floor as she writhed out from under the blanket, displacing Firenze.

Elijah stepped into the circle of light. She sighed, taking in his appearance.

"And it was _Armani_ , too."

He divested himself of his tie, dropping it to the floor with his jacket, his ruined shirt, and she quirked an eyebrow, drawn closer like a moth to that dangerous flame, reaching to help unbuckle his belt, unzip his sharply-tailored trousers. Blood smeared his torso, right at his heart. To heal from a shattered sternum – and a heart pierced by a makeshift oak lance – was no small feat, and hardly painless. It explained Elijah's dark glower – and why he stripped her of all but her reading-glasses, lifting her to his waist and striding determinedly to the stairs.

She smoothed away the tense lines carved deeply into his face with a fingertip trailing gently over his cool skin, cuddled flush to his side, her favourite place, the ache of him between her thighs, relaxed and happy, nuzzling his neck when his hand tightened on her hip. He sighed, gentling his grip, pressing an apologetic kiss to her temple.

He hadn't been killed in decades.

* * *

 **A.N.** : Thank you all for being so patient and sticking with me, with Giulia. I thought I'd end the chapter on a delicious note for all you die-hard Giulijah fans as a little treat. It's just sod's law though that I couldn't figure out how to write this chapter until 11:30 at night, the night before I have to be up early to start a new job. Oh well! A regular 9-to-5 means better writing hours!


	23. A Hit, Acknowledged

**A.N.** : Hi guys, thank you so much for the reviews. So things will definitely be departing from canon, especially from here on out. I've rearranged things, and because certain people are still alive (Sheila, Mason) things will happen differently; I'm going to be introducing some canon characters earlier. And, for all of you who love her as much as I do, just know, _Rose doesn't die_!

* * *

 **Dangerous Beauty**

 _23_

 _A Hit, Acknowledged_

* * *

"What's the matter with you?" Caroline asked, frowning, as Giulia squirmed again. Her entire body felt like it was too big for her skin. She was sure Caroline could probably _hear_ her nipples – and other places – throbbing. Her senses were hyper-acute and she hated more than anything the constricting denim that kept rubbing at just the wrong spot – if he wasn't going to oblige her, there was no way she was going to give in and sort herself – that was just as bad as begging _him_ to drop to his knees and finish her off with one of his scorching kisses.

"Just – _unsatisfied_ ," Giulia admitted in a growl. No point being anything but open about it – having a supernatural best-friend redefined _privacy_.

"Oh," Caroline smirked. "Do I even ask?"

"Just a little game we play," Giulia said grimly. Game. _Torture_. The awful thing was, they both enjoyed it so much. Caroline stifled a shiver, laughing.

"Okay, yeah, I don't wanna know," she chuckled.

Elijah had asked for the moonstone. Subtle and devious as he was, he had admitted there was no harm in just asking.

" _Elena told you_ I _had the moonstone?" she quirked an eyebrow._

" _She also believes you killed Katerina." She raised both eyebrows this time._

" _A murderer and a thief," she mused, shrugging a shoulder, sniffing slightly as she watched Elijah trail patterns on her hip with his fingertip, his lips pressed against her temple, warm and firm. She sighed heavily. "That girl needs to keep her mouth shut if she plans on surviving to adulthood. Maybe Stefan needs to stick something in her mouth a little more often."_

" _Crass, Giulia," Elijah tutted, though she could tell he was smirking._

" _Keeping her in the bedroom would keep her out of trouble…would keep everyone else safe," Giulia mused. She cared more about the collateral damage – the vampire and werewolf who needed sacrificing, the people who would get hurt in the attempt to save Elena._

" _Ah, so a better sex-life is the solution to the curse not being broken within Elena's lifetime," Elijah chuckled._

" _I suppose she and Stefan will just have to take one for the team," Giulia gave a long-suffering sigh, reaching for her phone. "I'll text him the idea, hm?"_

" _Speaking of…" Elijah unfolded from her, opening the drawer of her bedside-table. "I believe exquisite sexual torment may be my best option to get you to tell me where that wretched stone is. And searching this little drawer earlier, I found a peculiar little_ _lipstick_ _—Giulia, be my dear and demonstrate its purpose…."_

Giulia had – politely – refused Elijah, and regardless of how wound up he got her, she would continue to do so.

They were playing the _game_. _Hours_ of foreplay – left miserably unfulfilled. They both knew what they were getting into, it was _delicious_ – but Giulia was in a fidgety, grumpy mood and Elijah kept texting her heart-stopping things that made her squirm in her seat and regret the jeans rubbing her in just the right place – if her clothing got her off, was that technically _her_ doing? She didn't think so. But she was saving those texts. And those _pictures_.

But, tit for tat – she could give better than she was dealt. Soon the game would tumble out of control, and she was learning Elijah's tells to anticipate when that would be. She just had to hold out longer than he could – she was becoming a master at tormenting him, even if they were both too strong-willed and determined not to be the first to give in.

The night Elijah had returned home with his Armani suit in bloody tatters was the last time they had been together – being killed had unleashed a lot of emotions and memories in Elijah that Giulia doubted she would ever know, and she had been there to come home to, to bury himself in, get lost, to savour. She was _there_. Others weren't – and he was too old for the number of those lost ones to be small.

She was looking forward to when they both finally admitted this was _fun_ , toes already curling in anticipation of easing the pent-up frustration Elijah had cranked up to a fever-pitch raging so hot she could barely think beyond whispering to herself, _Don't cave. Don't beg_.

"Okay, can you focus, please?!" Caroline blurted, laughing.

"Pardon me?" Giulia glanced at her best friend, a little dazed. Elijah had left her barely able to walk this morning; she was driving on auto-pilot, not paying attention to Caroline's chatter as she took the route more familiar than the back of her hand.

"I asked what you think we should do to help Tyler prepare for the full-moon," Caroline sighed, looking anxious. Giulia had to go to the high-school to talk to her guidance-counsellor about getting her diploma, and had offered to come pick up Caroline with doughnuts. Giulia had received an offer in writing and wanted to make sure she had everything prepared. She didn't want to be rushing around at the end of the summer; she and Caroline should hopefully be making their leisurely way back from their road-trip so Caroline could attend the senior-year of high-school she had, in her mind, already planned to be epic.

Giulia hoped the summer together, just the two of them, having adventures and getting into trouble and seeing amazing things, having a fabulous time together, would soften the blow…she just wanted to talk to Liz about how to go about delivering the news. Besides, she'd wanted to ask Liz to come with her to meet with her financial advisor to go over Giulia's assets. She valued Liz's opinion and wanted it on a few matters Giulia had been contemplating.

She glanced at her best-friend. While the Brothers Salvatore were running around like chickens with their heads cut off over what Elena had blurted to them about the sacrifice, Caroline was worried about Tyler.

His was the greater of the two tragedies, and it – and not Elijah's torturous ministrations – kept her awake at night. She'd never admit it to Caroline, definitely not to Tyler, but she was deeply upset by Tyler triggering his curse. A few months ago, when she was still hurt from him running around on her, she might have wished for something like this to happen to him… Having watched Mason's video, she would never wish it on anyone, not even Tyler at his most dickish.

"Have you talked to him recently?" she asked.

"Not really," Caroline said. "It's weird, he's been keeping to himself a lot at school. I saw him break the combination dial off his locker the other day – and he looked _really_ freaked out when some guy knocked into him. You know how he would've always like grabbed anyone who did that and shove them?"

"Yeah, I remember," Giulia chuckled softly. Tyler was notorious for being a belligerent hothead. He couldn't resist even the most innocuous, unintended trigger. He'd been one hell of a brat when they were kids, once he'd outgrown the sweetness they had watched on old videos Giulia's dad had kept in the attic. "So he didn't lash out?"

"He looked – _scared_ ," Caroline frowned. Giulia sighed.

"Well, if his emotions are as heightened as yours were, maybe his normal aggression turned into rage – maybe it scared him straight," she guessed. Tyler had always been an angry teenager; he had had his sweet moments, leftovers from when he was a kid, but for the most part he had been a belligerent prick. "I hope he doesn't pick a fight with anyone, he could do some serious damage."

"You think he's that strong?"

"He's not vampire-strong but he could definitely land someone in the hospital," Giulia sighed, trying not to reflect on Sarah. That was an accident, although orchestrated by Katherine.

"I guess he'll…just have to start thinking about how he reacts to things," Caroline mused, and Giulia nodded, turning into the school parking-lot. She had to park in Caroline's spot, the school had taken away her spot due to her not attending full-time. She was about to leave completely.

"That might be a good thing," Giulia said heavily. Tyler picked more fights than any other guy in their class – he never got suspension only because his dad was the mayor, and the principal didn't want to have to have that argument with the bully who was Tyler's late-father.

"Hey, there he is," Caroline said brightly, and Giulia followed her gaze to one of the basketball courts, where a bunch of guys were squeezing in a pick-up game before the bell. "Come on, we can talk to him before you have to talk to your guidance counsellor."

"Fun," Giulia grimaced. If Mason had been able to smell sex on her when they'd met, surely Tyler would have no trouble sensing her sexual _dis_ satisfaction. By the double-take and the subtle smirk he gave her as she wandered over with Caroline, he could, and she sighed, rolling her eyes. She caught a glimpse of Matt and grimaced at Caroline before ducking away, swooping down to scoop the basketball Tyler had been dribbling morosely behind Matt's back into her arms.

"Sucker!" she grinned, dribbling the ball, feinting when he lurched for her, giving her a pained smile.

"Thought you'd quit coming to this place," Tyler said, eyeing the school miserably.

"They've got to sign some last bits of paperwork before they'll cut the cord," Giulia said, and Tyler smiled sadly. She glanced over her shoulder at Matt, who shiftily avoided Caroline's gentle smile, striding away. She caught Tyler's eye, grimaced subtly, and tucked her hair over her shoulder as Caroline approached, perfectly styled curls bouncing as she stopped in front of them, her expression smoothed out to conceal any disappointment.

"You two still on the outs?" Tyler prompted.

"Looks like it," Caroline sighed. "You realise it's almost a full-moon."

"Vampires don't have enough problems; you wanna take on mine?" Tyler smirked.

"Have you even thought about it, the whole… _wolf_ thing?" Caroline asked gently, and Tyler glanced around, making sure no-one overheard. "D'you know what you're gonna do?"

"I have a plan," Tyler said anxiously.

"Don't worry," Giulia waved a hand, bouncing the ball with the other, "we'll fix it." Caroline chuckled softly and Tyler's lips quirked into a smile, before his hand shot out, stealing the ball from her, turning and landing a three-pointer. "Aw, come on! No wolf-powers!"

" _That_ was just me!" Tyler laughed. "You haven't even seen how strong I am now!"

"Hey, I wanna know whether you triggering the curse brought on some instinctive fighting BAMF-ness," Giulia said, eyeing Tyler thoughtfully. "'Cuz we all know you can't _fight_ for shit."

"I can fight!"

"That prison-gang riot shit you unleash on kids who look at you the wrong way doesn't count," Giulia said baldly. "I'm talking _fighting_ – like Marine, MMA kind of stuff."

"Well, are you up for a gym session tonight? We can find out," Tyler suggested, with a grin.

"Hey, guys! Focus!" Caroline blurted. She gave Tyler a seeking look. "Well?"

"It's...kind of _private_ ," Tyler said, almost blushing. Giulia snorted.

"Tyler, I've already seen all the goods, darling," she said, making him blush as Caroline's lips twitched toward a smirk.

"And I'm Student Council President, Miss Mystic Falls, head of the Prom committee, not to mention I singlehandedly organised this town's clean-up campaign," Caroline said, raising her eyebrows, getting her Future Mrs President Face on. "You're really gonna turn down my help?"

"You might as well just accept it," Giulia said, shrugging, "we're with you on this."

That he wouldn't have to go through his transformation alone seemed to relax Tyler a little. But he was still anxious and even Giulia, who had no supernatural senses, could practically taste it. She didn't spend much time at Mystic Falls High beyond getting things settled in the office and sharing lunch with Car and Tyler, but even she could see there was a huge difference in Tyler's demeanour. Even though he hadn't endured his first transformation yet, even just triggering the curse had changed him.

They made plans for the three of them to meet at the gym after Giulia finished classes in Richmond. She wanted to see what Tyler could do, and she and Caroline had been sparring in the boxing-ring, teaching Caroline to hone her instincts – and temper her reaction-times so humans wouldn't notice there was something… _off_ with her – they needed to make sure she didn't confuse people while they competed in the Classic. How the hell would they explain that she was _dead_ to someone who wanted to test her blood for steroids?

If she couldn't get off with her immortal fuck-buddy, she'd have to exorcise her frustration with a fledgling vampire and a newbie werewolf in the boxing-ring. Getting hot and sweaty and beat-up sounded delicious – she'd be too tired to really get worked up by Elijah's delicious talents. She could just pull her car over on the side of the road and give herself a hand but she was running late, and she still didn't want to give Elijah the satisfaction of knowing he'd gotten to her. It was the psychological part of their game she enjoyed almost as much as the torturous foreplay.

* * *

"Okay, Mohammed Ali, show us what you can do," Giulia taunted, a few hours later. The three of them had met outside the gym, an overheating Tyler glad to be in the A.C. of the gym – Giulia had touched his arm and been alarmed by how warm he was. All that time memorising Meredith's medical texts and she knew that kind of heightened body-temp did not bode well – for humans. They discussed it while they did some warm-up stretches, the idea that his 'fever' had a lot to do with an extraordinary metabolism that made him hungry an hour after gorging on a full steak breakfast from their favourite diner downtown. He had always had a healthy appetite, carb-loading for the three sports he played at varsity level, but he had noticed a staggering difference – he was _always_ hungry. Always overheated, to the point his mom had threatened to call the doctor – Giulia had given Meredith a heads-up about the situation, and Tyler had asked Giulia to figure out how the hell he was supposed to tell his mom.

It was _fun_ – sparring in the ring with Caroline. Tyler _thoroughly_ enjoyed himself, watching the two girls smacking each other, Caroline in her perky little gym gear and pink boxing-gloves, not a hair out of place while Giulia got more exhausted with each bout, sweating profusely, her braids coming loose, exhilarated and laughing as they danced around the ring, Caroline tempering her strength, Giulia trying to get past her defences. Caroline frolicked off the ring to swig at her water-bottle, not even out of breath. Giulia rolled her shoulders, stretching her arms.

"You sure you can even raise your arms? That was pretty intense," Tyler teased, as he climbed into the ring.

Fighting with Caroline was fun. But fighting _Tyler_ – he was the only person who had ever really brought out any kind of competitiveness in Giulia, and he didn't pull punches. Literally. It was an intense workout, sparring with him – she was at a disadvantage, having been boxing with Caroline, but she held her own, drawing a crowd – which grew to include Jeremy, at the gym training with Ric – and she blew a lock of hair away from her sweaty face, putting up her arms to block Tyler. The intense expression was back, the one that consumed Tyler's face, and they weren't _playing_ anymore. Giulia had always liked that Tyler always took his workouts so seriously.

A blow to her ribcage made her buckle, and she was vaguely aware of her face exploding.

* * *

She woke to the slow _beep-beep-beep_ of a machine and the overwhelming scent of antiseptic, and jerked upright, making a dark shadow jump.

"Please tell me nobody gave me mouth-to-mouth," Giulia blurted, instantly regretting being upright. Her head swam, throbbing as if something had invaded it, pulsating angrily, wanting to push her brains out of her ears, and she was acutely aware of a pain in the right side of her chest.

" _Jeez_!"

"Oh, thank god! You're awake!" Caroline's voice dripped with relief, as Tyler bowed his head, heaving a sigh, hands curled around the railing of a hospital-bed. "We thought Tyler had really hurt you!"

"Are we at the hospital?" she asked, discombobulated. The throbbing in her head really was painful; it was making her nauseous, combined with the bright strip-lighting above them, and that _smell_ … The last time she had been in the E.R. was when Tyler and Caroline were both admitted.

"Yeah. Hot Scott had to call an ambulance for you," Caroline grimaced, though her eyes twinkled; they both loved Hot Scott, one of the private instructors at the gym. "I'll go get Meredith, she'll be happy you're awake at least."

"I am _so sorry_ , Giulia," Tyler said earnestly, looking incredibly sincere as she fidgeted, inhaling sharply at the pain in her chest as she moved, relieved she wasn't wearing one of those classy paper gowns. "What're you doing?"

"'M not staying here," Giulia said groggily, her head spinning as she grabbed around her for her things, but she couldn't find any. Her tongue felt too heavy to talk, her head throbbed as if…as if a teen-wolf had punched her in the head with unfamiliar new strength. "Guess we know how strong you are now." She slid off the gurney, nausea churned, and Tyler caught her when she blacked out. She blinked, coming back into it, still in Tyler's arms as he shouted for help, she tugged at his t-shirt, nausea bubbling up violently, unable to communicate as she had her jaw clamped shut, her head spinning as she lurched for the medical-waste trashcan. Her ribs screamed in protest as she bent, heaving, throwing up the contents of her stomach.

"What's going on in here?"

"She tried to get up off the bed, I kinda caught her before she could bite the floor but – well…" Tyler trailed off, glancing frantically at Meredith, her white lab-coat tugged on over lilac scrubs.

"Okay, she's definitely got a severe concussion," Meredith sighed. "Why don't the two of you wait outside while I examine her? Is her cousin on his way?"

"I've tried to get Damon but I've called my mom," Caroline said. "She's Giulia's emergency contact."

"Okay," Meredith nodded, gently guiding Giulia back to the cot after Giulia gasped, sagging against the trashcan, stomach empty, head throbbing, ribs screaming. "You two wait outside… Giulia, just lie back. What happened?"

"Gym. Boxing… Tyler hit me," Giulia groaned, collapsing on the cot, panting. She fidgeted, writing, and pulled up her t-shirt, wanting to see through her skin to her ribs. They _hurt_.

" _Oh_!" Meredith blurted, and Giulia hissed a gasp. Where Tyler had hit the right side of her ribcage, a bruise flourished. Already angry purple and fuchsia, bursting from a star of mottled pinkish-yellow, ringed by sickening green. She thought she could even see Tyler's knuckle-prints – and he had been wearing _gloves_! "That is a serious bruise."

Getting her doctor on, Meredith gave Giulia a meticulous examination. Since she had vomited, Meredith diagnosed her with at least a severe concussion. She booked Giulia in for an X-ray to check there wasn't more than just superficial damage to either her head or her ribs.

While Giulia waited for the results of her tests, Caroline stayed outside on her cell trying to get hold of Damon or Stefan, waiting for Liz to arrive. Tyler hovered, guilty and anxious – Giulia gestured him into her little curtained-off cubicle.

"Hey," he said, barely able to meet her eye.

"I'm okay, you know," she said softly. She didn't even have a drip! They were all making such a fuss, but she was fine – it felt like one of her worse hangovers, to be honest.

"Yeah, I know," Tyler said, nodding to himself. He glanced up and gave a tiny smile. "You're tough." She wanted to nod, but her head throbbed.

"Hey, um…is any of my stuff here?"

"Yeah, hang on, I'll go get it," Tyler said softly. "You want your gym-bag or your backpack?"

"My backpack," Giulia sighed. She had fallen unconscious by the time he returned, but he shook her awake, on Meredith's orders, and Giulia glanced around groggily, finding it difficult to focus. She took the backpack, a little confused, but unzipped it, staring inside at the contents. Why had she wanted it? She glanced up at Tyler, blinking bemusedly. Tyler stared back at her, anxious and guilty.

"What were you looking for?" he asked gently. She stared into the bag, fiddling with the zipper. A small journal made her frown, reaching for it, and she was distracted by the tag around her wrist, her name in tiny print, birthday, sex, blood-type, attending doctor, numbers she was too befuddled to work out. She blinked, and pulled the journal out. It was small, weather-stained, there was a rustle of plastic against cardboard and Giulia glanced up at Tyler, remembering.

"Mason asked me to keep this safe, in case… In case you needed it," she said sadly. Mason's parting words had been his hope that she would _never_ have to give Giulia his journal. That he regretted not being able to stick around to make sure Tyler didn't need it. He'd enjoyed spending time with the nephew he barely knew, but saw a lot of himself in – a lot of potential he didn't want to see wasted because, like Mason, his dad had died young leaving him aimless. "Just…promise you and Caroline won't talk about your plans until I'm…recovered?"

"Sure," Tyler said softly. "Kinda wanna avoid thinking about it, you know?"

"You'll get through it," Giulia said grimly. She sighed, glancing at Tyler. "There's no other option."

Meredith returned with her results several hours later. Caroline, Tyler and Liz had taken turns standing vigil, waking her on the hour as instructed. The diagnosis was that Tyler had accidentally bruised three of Giulia's ribs. Just a little bit more force and they would have broken. Giulia didn't have any contusions to her skull, and there was no bleeding on the brain, but with a severe concussion Meredith would only release Giulia – a minor, still, though orphaned – to Liz on condition she was still woken every hour. She also wasn't to have the stronger pain-meds Meredith prescribed her for her bruised ribs until she had recovered from the concussion.

* * *

The next twenty-four hours were a miserable sleep-deprived blur as she tossed and turned in the bed next to Caroline, being woken every hour by the irritating buzz of Caroline's alarm-clock and a nudge and full-body jostle – Caroline forced her to eat a tiny snack or guzzle down Gatorade each time, and Giulia was dazed and disoriented, and in pain – every time she breathed, her ribs ached. She might've preferred just breaking the ribs outright, she couldn't tell whether there would be any greater inconvenience. She was forbidden by Meredith from going to the gym, attending dance-practice – or having sex. _No vigorous activity_ , were her words. Nothing that would cause pain to her ribs. So, breathing was out.

It wasn't until the next evening, her phone finally charged after dying while she was in the E.R., Tyler around for dinner Caroline had cooked – spinach and mushroom chicken casseroles for the invalid, at her request; Caroline made a mean casserole – that they got down to it. Tyler's plan. They had taken a field-trip – Caroline clucking over her like a nervous hen, insisting on carrying her half the way there and all the way back – to the derelict cellar that had once formed the foundations of the original Lockwood plantation house.

"Matt's bumming pretty hard," Tyler told Caroline, Giulia holding on to her piggy-back style.

"I know," Caroline said softly, and a bite of steel entered her voice as she added, "It's better this way."

"I get it," Tyler nodded.

"You do?" Caroline asked sceptically.

"Yeah," Tyler said. "You can't be honest with him. It's not really fair to be with someone and…not really let them know who you are… I get it." Caroline was surprised, Giulia could sense it.

This thoughtful, intuitive Tyler – this was the kid Giulia had once been in love with. Maybe it was too early to say but from what she had seen, Giulia believed triggering his werewolf-curse had stripped Tyler of all the bullshit that had made him such an unlikeable kid. The anger, the aggression – the ego. Maybe whatever had been churning inside him had settled due to the curse being triggered – his hormones had levelled out, or something. Maybe Meredith would know.

It probably also had a lot to do with the fact Tyler had killed a girl. Accidentally or not – his aggression, anger and strength had all contributed to Sarah's death. Maybe he was working on that, to prevent it from ever happening again. Or possibly it was just chemical, his body now fit for its full potential. The way she imagined it, Tyler before triggering the curse had been like Dr Jekyll, with Mr Hyde constantly trying to gain control. Now, the two had seamlessly merged into one stronger, more sensible being.

Perhaps it wasn't the best thing, having helped cover it all up, and they were all just going on with their lives, dealing with the next hurdle life threw at them, she imagined Tyler was a mess beneath that calmer exterior. They hadn't dealt with the fact that Tyler had killed someone. They were desensitised to it, Giulia knew, and she regretted that. But Tyler was new to this, a baby werewolf, and had no idea what had been going on in his hometown for months while the rest of them dealt with some pretty messed up stuff.

It wasn't just that he understood why Caroline kept a wall between her and Matt. It was that, when Giulia had told him about her dad, he had understood why Giulia refused to give in to rage, wanting revenge. She didn't want to waste the energy, and her dad wouldn't have wanted her putting herself in harm's way to avenge him. He'd rather she turn the other cheek and go on and live her life to the fullest.

"Right over here," Tyler said, striding ahead, and Giulia caught Caroline's eye when she glanced over her shoulder, her expression saying it all. She was… _charmed_ by this thoughtful Tyler. Giulia patted Caroline's head, nodding. She knew. "There's a cellar that goes to our old property."

"I know," Caroline said lightly.

"Oh… Right. This is where you were outted to your mom," Tyler grimaced, hesitating at the top of a crumbling staircase, the remnants of the original Lockwood plantation. Two Sheriff's Deputies had died down there. He sighed, glancing back at them, wincing. "My mom told me this is where my ancestors punished their slaves… Kinda relieved to find out it's actually where my ancestors turned into _werewolves_ once a month."

"Especially your ancestor. George Lockwood was a world-class _dick_ ," Giulia muttered.

"How d'you know that?"

"Stefan and Damon knew him and – oh, did I mention – I stole his journals from your attic!" Giulia grimaced guiltily.

"Wait, the Lockwood journals? I thought they were all destroyed in the fire that – burned this whole house down?!" Caroline blurted.

"Lies, all lies!" Giulia smiled. "My guess is the Lockwood family didn't want the other Founders reading George's journals, especially as he detailed every transformation…every kill. Plus he documented how he abused his slaves…he could've given Madame LaLaurie a run for her money."

" _Who_?"

"She was a notorious socialite in New Orleans during the 1800s," Tyler spoke up, frowning down the cellar steps. "She tortured her slaves. Way beyond the Slave Codes."

"How do you know that?" Caroline asked, blinking. Tyler had never been known to be _studious_.

"Are you kidding me? Dating this one over here, you think I didn't pick up things while she was researching the Underground Railroad? You were _obsessed_ ," Tyler said, smiling fondly at Giulia. Tempestuous as their relationship had been, very Peyton-and-Nathan, there were a lot of times when they had just been able to hang out, her researching for her essays, Tyler indulging in being able to draw without his dad bitching him out about wasting his time.

"I'm just proud you were actually paying attention," Giulia smiled.

"Watch your step," Tyler smiled, finally descending into the cellar. "What is that?"

"What?" Giulia groaned, her ribs aching.

"That smell," Tyler frowned.

"Blood," Caroline said quietly. "It's old blood…from the Deputies."

"Oh," Tyler said quietly, as Giulia slid off Caroline's back.

"Did Mason tell you about this place?" Caroline asked.

"I haven't managed to get hold of him to tell him I triggered the curse," Tyler sighed. "But I followed him here, I figure this is where he was headed the night I saw him transform… Look, I found these…" Chains, bolted into the walls. Deep grooves, like claw marks, rent into the stone like it was nothing more than butter. And these foundations weren't made of soft stone – they were built to last.

"So, you've tried to get in contact with Mason?" Caroline prompted.

"Yeah. Tried his cell a few times, the number my mom had for him in Florida," Tyler sighed. "Nothing."

"He's lying low," Giulia told them quietly. "Doesn't want to make it easy to be tracked down. Although – thank you, Elena – now other vampires know the moonstone's in play, and she's pointed the finger at _me_!"

"Wait, what other vampires know about the moonstone?" Caroline asked.

"Apparently, one of the vampires who kidnapped Elena escaped when Damon killed Elijah," Giulia sighed. "The only good thing is, she was granted her _freedom_ by Elijah so I doubt she'd do anything to jeopardise that. If I were her, I'd get as far away from all this mess and enjoy not having to look over my shoulder… But there's a chance she might tell other people." So far as she knew, Slater hadn't been alerted to the discovery of the moonstone. And Giulia knew _he_ was the contact who had tipped off the vampires Rosemary and Trevor, who had then conspired to kidnap the doppelgänger and bargain her for their freedom.

"So…who's Elijah?" Tyler frowned, flicking a flashlight around the stifling, echoey cellar.

"He's one of the Originals. One of the very first vampires," Giulia said, glancing over at him. "There was a whole family of them. They're…practically royalty to other vampires. Pre-medieval."

"What do you mean, there _was_ a whole family of them?" Caroline frowned.

"One of them got too paranoid, arrogant and manipulative – he killed the others. Now I think there's only a couple left," Giulia said thoughtfully. "Elijah's one of them."

"But he's dead," Caroline said softly.

"Mm." Giulia glanced at Tyler. "So what's your plan?"

"Look – bolts and chains. I need new chains, but the bolts could hold," Tyler said, tugging on one of the bolts contemplatively.

"I've asked Sheila Bennett to put a spell on here, the cellar," Giulia said quietly, and the others glanced at her. She shrugged.

"What kind of spell?" Caroline asked curiously; Tyler looked like he was struggling to process that they were having a causal conversation about werewolf-transformations and witch hoodoo.

"When the full-moon rises, the spell will keep a werewolf confined in the cellar," Giulia said, circling a finger around the dark cellar. "A mystical boundary, rather than risk the rusty old moulding door over there."

"So, like the tomb spell?" Caroline asked sceptically.

"Yes. Except the spell will be bound to the moon cycle – once the full moon has set, the seal will break," Giulia said, yawning. She was still recovering from being woken every hour, kept awake by her bruised ribs, not allowed any drugs until she recovered from her concussion. She was hiding her foul mood quite well, she thought. Just quieter than usual, and yawning a lot more.

"So I shouldn't be able to get out?" Tyler said.

"In theory," Caroline sighed.

"Sheila knows her stuff," Giulia said to him. "You won't get out."

"So I won't hurt anyone," Tyler said, sounding relieved.

"Do you have the journal?" Giulia asked, and Tyler nodded.

"There's a memory-card in the back," Tyler said. "I haven't…I couldn't look at whatever's on there…"

"Well…we can watch it with you," Caroline said softly. Giulia's stomach dipped at the idea, having seen the contents of that memory-card before, but Caroline carried her back to her car, and they holed up at Caroline's house. Liz was still at work, and Caroline poured them some bourbon. None for Giulia, due to her invalid status.

It wasn't the hits she had taken so much as the recovery that had really thrown her. She was an athlete and a dancer; injury was part and parcel of that and a lot of effort went into _not_ getting injured. She and Tyler had just gotten so into it, competitive, having fun, pushing each other, that they had forgotten… Tyler couldn't _play_ like he could before, not even with her. He was stronger than they had thought. Not as strong as Caroline, but easily strong enough to do some serious damage. He could quite easily have given her brain-damage.

The bruise flourishing on her ribcage was just physical evidence that Giulia was not invincible. She knew she wasn't – usually she took precautions because she _knew_ she wasn't. She thought thirteen steps ahead and planned things, because she _had_ to, because she didn't have supernatural hearing, speed, strength, or healing. All she had was her own strength – and half of that was strength of will, and strength of _mind_. She could push her body to its limits because of those two things, and because she was prepared. She had had training, knew how to use her body, and where she could use it to inflict the most damage on any attacker. Fighting was about anticipation and precision more than anything else. If she could avoid a hit she could win the fight, every time.

But they'd been _playing_ – talking shit to each other, flirting, goofing off, and breaking up snarky back-and-forth with intense sparring and wallops that had made people at the gym place bets.

Giulia was _human_.

She was now the only human in a circle of friends that included vampires, werewolves, doppelgangers and witches.

She sat, quiet and upset while Tyler and Caroline talked about his transformation – the full-moon. What that really meant for him, and how they could help him. Tyler was dead set on preventing himself from hurting anyone when he turned. He had no idea what would happen, what it even really meant… Giulia felt miserable, and that only made her more closed off, full of dread as Tyler brought out the journal she had given him. She had made him promise, and he'd kept it, too afraid to peek at the pages.

Her body hurt from taking one hit, three ribs bruised. Having watched Mason's video…how the hell would Tyler feel during his transformation?

Mason had been walking around, chill and funny, helpful, he was a laidback guy with a good head on his shoulders – appalling taste in women, but otherwise a decent guy. He wasn't crippled by his transformations – he dreaded them, but the rest of his life didn't seem dictated by them.

Giulia didn't want Tyler's life railroaded because of this – because of Katherine. Because of the sacrifice ritual she would absolutely _not_ be letting Tyler or Caroline be any part of – or anyone else she cared about. She and Sheila had been working things out, setting things in place. _They_ had plans of their own, Giulia had confided some secrets she felt were safe with Sheila and necessary for her cooperation.

The fact that she had had the cellar fortified seemed a huge relief to Tyler. Now that he didn't have to worry about hurting anyone, he seemed to be focusing all his energy on what he would be going through. He set up his laptop, inserting the memory-card into a little slot, and they sat side-by-side on Caroline's sofa, Giulia uncomfortably, Caroline flicking through the journal. Giulia would rather have not turned over the journal and memory-card, but it was what Mason had wanted, and she supposed Tyler had to mentally prepare for what was going to happen to him, as much as go out and buy chains to ensure he didn't hurt anyone. Clicking around on the memory-stick, Tyler opened a video-file, and a shirtless Mason appeared, talking to the camera.

" _It's September fifteenth_ ," Mason's voice said. The time-stamp at the bottom of the screen read 6:04:00 PM. He stood in his garage, the usual junk accumulated by athletic single guys surrounding him. " _Two hours from the first full-moon since I triggered the curse_."

"He taped his first transformation," Tyler said wonderingly. Caroline flipped through the journal.

"September sixteenth," she said, pointing to a page header. "He wrote about everything the next day." As Tyler fast-forwarded through the video, Caroline read aloud. "'I chose the garage. I could deadbolt the door. It was far from the street so no-one could hear. I bolted hooks to the floor for the carabiners'. What, like for mountain-climbing?"

"Retractable cables," Tyler said thoughtfully. They watched the screen, Mason drinking from a water-bottle and coughing, spluttering. "What's he doing?"

"It's wolfsbane," Caroline said softly. Giulia dozed, the first of her meds starting to kick in, warm and cosy in the Forbes' cosy, neutral-feminine living-room, the comfy sofa, Tyler's intense heat radiating from him, working like a heating-pad against her. She could hear Caroline's voice, as if from far away. "'I diluted wolfsbane with water to weaken myself but I could barely get it down without puking. It felt like I was drinking battery acid. Over an hour passed. Nothing happened. It got so quiet I could hear my own blood pumping. That's when…'" She stirred, the sounds of pained grunts and choked yells rousing her. "'I kept thinking I'd black out and not feel it, but I did. I… I felt all of it'… How long is it?"

"We're three hours in," Tyler said, his voice panicky, full of emotion. He sped up the video. "Four hours… Five hours. How long does this last?" Giulia mumbled when the weight beside her shifted, taking with it the intense heat that had been lulling her, soothing her aching side. "I c- I can't do that!" She stirred, peeking blearily through the dark and a drug-induced haze – Meredith had given her the good stuff! – at a deeply-upset Tyler.

"Come sit down, Tyler," she said gently. His breath was shaky as he paced the living-room, anxious and upset, but eventually he did sit back down, looking defeated. She patted his knee, already drifting off again, lulled once more by his heat and Meredith's delicious drugs. "You'll survive it. It's what you're made for. And we're with you."

She drifted off again, out cold, and woke to the sun sending a spear right between her eyes, sweating and achy – one side of her body felt like it had been burned. She became aware of what had woken her as the others stirred – Tyler had apparently slept over, head lolled back on the back of the sofa, with Caroline curled up to him like a lizard seeking the sun's heat. Cold-blooded now, Caroline always became the big spoon when Giulia slept over, wanting to absorb Giulia's warmth. And Tyler was like a personal space-heater. Her phone, which she had remembered to charge yesterday, was buzzing. As the other stirred, stiff and achy from falling asleep on the couch, Giulia peeked in the brightness and found the source of the noise – her phone, set to vibrate, was lit up and dancing. As Tyler grunted and Caroline gave a confused murmur, she dove for her phone before either of them could see the photograph of a shirtless Elijah grinning lazily in rumpled sheets glowing on her screen. _Hot Viking Totty_ was the name she had saved Elijah's contact details under, but if they saw that photo on her phone and then _met_ Elijah… Well, she'd prefer to keep things separate.

Heart swooping, she dove for her phone, and groaned as she hit Accept, her ribs aching.

" _You sound glorious_ ," Elijah smirked. " _Do you like the photograph_?"

"N – I – _Yes_ , but Tyler and Caroline could've seen it!"

" _I know. Doesn't it make things so much more fun?_ " Elijah practically purred, and Giulia chuckled, the sound transforming into a moan as her ribs protested. " _Why do you sound like you're in pain_?"

"I bruised some ribs," Giulia grumbled, putting the coffee on. She could tell it was still early: Liz always made the coffee. If the pot wasn't full, Liz wasn't awake. And she was always the last home and the first to leave for work.

" _How_?"

"Tyler and I were boxing at the gym," she groaned, holding a hand to her side, already missing Tyler's warmth. "He literally had no idea of his own strength." She heard Elijah let out a sigh.

" _Can you meet me_?"

"Oh, I'm sorry – no physical exertion, doctor's orders," Giulia said.

" _Why did your friend Caroline not heal you_?"

"She knows I wouldn't thank her for it," Giulia said quietly, glancing over her shoulder into the living-room. Giulia was dead set against accepting vampire-blood to heal herself. She figured the moment she did, it was over: she would lose perspective, lose any respect for her own limitations – and that would only put her in danger.

* * *

 **A.N.** : So, just a reminder to the reader, to Giulia and to all her friends, she is still very much human. Insanely clever, well-trained, fearless, but human.


	24. Rose

**A.N.** : Hello, chaps. Okay, another slow chapter – she's healing from bruised ribs, y'know! For _22cjwolf22_. I may dedicate another, more action-filled chapter to you as well for that lovely review!

* * *

 **Dangerous Beauty**

 _24_

 _Rose_

* * *

She was slower than usual, healing. Physically she was exhausted while her body healed itself; but her mind was running a mile a minute, churning over everything, she _wanted_ to be absorbed wholly by her projects. But she found herself – under the influence of Meredith's strong meds – dozing off while she read, distracted from her sketches, and if she refused to accept vampire-blood to heal, Caroline, Damon and Elijah all _forbade_ her from operating heavy machinery, like her car, or a circular-saw to cut plywood for the teardrop-trailer she and Caroline were renovating, or the stove.

Elijah had woken her deliciously each morning, drawing her purring and writhing into wakefulness with luxuriating kisses between her thighs: her _injury_ had put a brief pause on their game. And he had either driven her to Richmond early for breakfast at one of the many cafés Giulia had started frequenting – biscuits and sausage gravy; white nectarine and strawberry muffins and freshly-roasted coffee; French toast with strawberries; cheesy eggs Florentine – or would cook for them, almond rice-pudding with cherry compote; a savoury Danish breakfast with smoked salmon, rye bread and boiled eggs; a full English cooked breakfast with black pudding, fried bread, sausages and the most delicious, rich mushrooms she had ever had, amazing sausages from a deli in downtown Richmond and thick-cut bacon cooked the English way.

He was _spoiling_ her. He respected that she would not accept vampire blood to heal the bruise now fading to a gruesome yellowish green, though he winced every time he looked at it.

Whatever Elijah was planning, Giulia had her own issues to deal with: She and Caroline were focused on Tyler, and Giulia, drugged up to her eyeballs due to her bruised ribs, sleepless due to her brain working overtime in contrast to her physical exhaustion, got very annoyed with the dozen texts, missed phone-calls and pokes from Stefan and Damon, to the point where she eluded Elijah, drove over to the Boarding House and told the brothers off for bothering her.

"The best way to keep Elena safe is to do absolutely _nothing_ to dig into the sacrifice," Giulia glowered at them. Stefan had called five times while Elijah was in the middle of seeing to her – orgasms eased physical pains, and Elijah was very dedicated to Giulia's healing process, as he had realised early he couldn't even use her injury and exhaustion and annoyance to his advantage and gain intel on the moonstone's location, and he wanted to get back to the game. "The more people you ask, the more they'll wonder, the faster Klaus learns there's a human doppelgänger ready to have her throat slit."

"Hey, we're going to make sure there's absolutely no chance of that happening," Stefan said fiercely, glancing at Elena, who sat pouting on the daybed. Giulia rolled her eyes. She was pissed off Elijah had been interrupted, leaving her very irritated. It was one thing to be left unsatisfied as part of their game – it was another to be _interrupted_. The subject-matter of this conversation wasn't doing anything to help, either. It was sweet they'd turned to _her_ as the person most likely to be able to uncover any answers, but it pissed her off they were more worried about Elena than Tyler.

"I'm not going to help you research the sacrifice and draw tons of attention to us," Giulia said baldly. She already knew what she needed to, and was focused on other, more important and pressing matters. "Just leave it alone. You start digging, that's how self-fulfilling prophecies start. And, can I just point out, you're so worried about something that _might_ affect Elena _in the future_ , when a real, legitimate tragedy just happened. Tyler doesn't have long until the full-moon and you're worried about _her_. He's going to turn into a wolf – every bone in his body is going to break so they can reform from a human to canine form. And he'll feel _all of it_. So can we focus on _that_ awfulness and not make it all about _her_ for once!"

"What is in those drugs Meredith gave you?" Damon asked, frowning bemusedly at her. "You're usually mellower about your Elena-hate."

"It's not hate; it's disinterest," Giulia said coolly. "I care more about Tyler going through his first transformation than some looming threat over her skinny little neck." She was irritated, they all knew it. Irritable, impatient – her recovery was getting to her, Meredith still hadn't signed her off as healed and it was testing her strength of will not to ask for a drop of Caroline's blood so she could go out and play with the other kids. Her physical healing was affecting her mentally; she was distracted, she couldn't play with her toys, stuck between wanting to do a thousand things and physically incapable of completing them.

"Giulia, you're the only one we could think of who'd be able to find out anything," Stefan said earnestly.

"Flattery won't get you anywhere – next time, remember one text achieves the same as twenty-four," Giulia said irritably. "I'm not going to help you with this, I actually have my priorities straight and for the moment Tyler is _it_."

"Giulia – Elena was _kidnapped_."

"And here she is, safe and sound," Giulia rolled her eyes. "So please tone it down. You weren't a fraction as concerned when I disappeared for entire weekends with no contact." Damon pulled a face; he knew that was true.

"If someone finds out about Elena –"

"You're conjecturing," Giulia sighed. "How're people going to find out, hm? You said Elijah killed Trevor and the other one, Rose, fled when Damon killed Elijah. Doubt she's stupid enough to risk her hard-won freedom by revealing she had any involvement with the death of an _Original_." The brothers glanced at each other.

Clearly they hadn't thought of that.

"How do you know about the Originals?" Elena asked, frowning at her.

"How do I know about anything?" Giulia asked lightly, not looking at her. "Can I go now? I actually have things to do, I'm just lucid enough to work a circular-saw." She left Elena dazed and full of dread, wondering _why_ Giulia needed a circular-saw, and the brothers glanced at each other, sighing. Damon shrugged.

"Do you think she's right?" Stefan asked quietly.

"About Rose?" Damon asked. He hadn't thought of that – the hot vampire Elena had called Rose wouldn't risk being associated with the death of an Original; was she going to _tell_ anyone she had been there when Damon had killed Elijah – over the doppelgänger? "Maybe. I've only ever heard of a handful of people who've even _seen_ an Original – but I know enough to know the Originals don't suffer anyone to get involved in their family politics. The only person who can punish or kill an Original is an Original."

And he knew that, because he was one of that handful of people he knew who'd seen an Original. New Orleans stuck out in his mind, a community of vampires and other supernatural beings all living together – somewhat peacefully – amongst humans, pillars of the community, philanthropists, artists, musicians and nurses, students, teachers, realtors and chefs. Once upon a time, Originals had turned a backwater penal colony into the jewel of the South, the heart of Southern culture, the Big Easy. He'd heard they'd abandoned the city during the Prohibition. He and his arrogant frenemy Kol had had three mutual interests: booze, bad blood between brothers and beautiful women. Kol, he'd preferred witches, he'd even pointed him to Bree a couple decades ago. Whether Kol himself was an Original remained to be seen; for a cocky douche he'd held things close to the vest, but authority had emanated from the psychotic, hedonistic vampire whenever another of their kind crossed paths with him. Vampires didn't enter his bar without an invitation – not due to any threshold, but out of respect, and more than a little dread. Damon had never met another person so mercurial in his emotions, one minute brooding, the next crying with hysterical laughter, the next destructively inconsolable. They'd had fun, tearing through the Quarter together, but even he'd been a little freaked out by what Kol was capable of, things Damon wouldn't even dream in his worst nightmares. Bordered on Ripper!Stefan behaviour, and Damon had never been into that.

Damon only knew that Kol's family dynamic was more warped even than his and Stefan's. That the Originals had fought each other for centuries, and yet when faced by any external threat they immediately worked together to destroy that threat.

Did Damon think Rose would risk someone like Kol tracking her down if she let it be known she had witnessed the death of an Original? Damon wouldn't. Elena had told them she'd been kidnapped for the sole purpose of being passed along to Elijah, a bargaining tool for the freedom of Katerina Petrova's earliest victims. Damon would take that freedom and run with it.

"I wouldn't tell anyone," Damon shrugged. "She got what she wanted, she's free."

"But we killed Elijah," Stefan reminded him. "Does it matter that Elijah pardoned her if he's not around to enforce that to others?"

"Firstly, _I_ killed Elijah," Damon corrected. "Second of all… I don't know! I _do_ know I'd feel more comfortable knowing where Rose is, and who her contact is who snitched on Elena, and whether or not I have to rip their heart out of their chest to make sure they don't tell anyone else." He shrugged. He was sure Rose was long gone – he couldn't imagine being with someone for five centuries, only to have his head bitch-slapped off in front of him. She was probably reeling – if she hadn't turned off her emotions.

* * *

Caroline met her at the old stables. Giulia had dragged the tarpaulin off the skeleton of her uncle's vintage teardrop trailer, and tacked blueprints and design sketches to the stable wall, tools and things scattered on the worktop she and Car had cleared off for the purpose. They were making progress, the 'bones' of the teardrop replaced, and improved – planning to road-trip across the US for nearly three-months, storage was of paramount concern, without making the teardrop any bigger or too much heavier. So, clever storage and wardrobe restrictions were of greatest concern. Elijah had made a couple of notes on her design plans, his past as a carpenter and builder and the maker of exquisite jewellery and furniture coming through.

"Are those the plans for the galley?" Caroline asked, setting a baker's box full of fresh, still-hot glazed fritters on the worktop. "You're not already redesigning it, are you? We just installed the cubbies!"

"Mm," Giulia said thoughtfully, frowning at the various plans. She had sketched half a dozen designs, trying to figure out the best, space-saving ways to incorporate the essentials she thought they'd need. They'd be running the mini-oven and twin-burner camping stove on gas; if they found campsites with hook-ups they could use electricity, but she didn't want to make things more complicated with wiring – especially since she was by nature a cryptologist, engineer, historian and cook, not an electrician. And that was dangerous to DIY. Besides, did they really _need_ the teardrop to be fully wired? To encourage them to sit inside and watch TV while they should be out canyoning Utah, horseback-riding Wyoming, hiking Monument Valley?

Caroline's curling-iron would have to make the sacrifice for their epic road-trip.

"That's not Damon's handwriting," Caroline mused, peering closer at the plans as she opened the pink bakery box. "Hey, I brought blueberry fritters. _Fresh_. And I got a whole _wheel_ of paint-swatches." She beamed, excited, producing a boxed, ring bound, two-inch thick doorstop of paint-swatches.

"The teardrop's sapphire-blue," Giulia frowned. They were going to treat the exterior of the teardrop with the same paint-job as her Beetle. So they matched, of course.

"Yes, but for the _inside_ , I figured paler colours to make it seem larger than it is, and cooler, for you, so it's not a sweatbox," Caroline said, rolling her eyes. "And I think we should put like a foot of padding on one of the walls as a headboard, and cover it with some pretty fabric."

"Yeah, I thought that too," Giulia said softly, eyeing the designs.

"I love the sketch," Caroline said warmly, pointing to the retro-style sketch Giulia had done of the interior of the trailer, the design they had ended up building, with clean lines, softly-curved corners on the cubby doors, a small window in the front and one in the door, and a galley with a square of butcher's block, a mini-oven, a smallish icebox instead of a mini-refrigerator tucked away out of sight, and a tiled-top fold-out section for the twin-burner camping stove on top and clever storage beneath. They had been thinking about what they would _need_ to take with them rather than what they _wanted_ and half the fun of planning things was rewriting old recipes so they could be made with minimal equipment. Nobody could say Giulia and Caroline didn't love a challenge.

She did have plans to test the limits of Caroline's compulsion for free meals, of course.

"Yeah, I do, too," Giulia said thoughtfully, approaching Caroline to share in the spoils from the bakery. "This one's my favourite; I'm trying to rework these two together to mesh all the elements more cohesively because there's things I like from both designs that aren't in the other."

"So, we've decided we're _not_ taking a mini-refrigerator. And we're gonna have an icebox, a mini-oven and a two-burner camping stove, and we'll keep a wash-line for laundry."

"Yup. And I found a mini solar generator we can use to keep things charged, so your mom doesn't have to use her connections to track us down," Giulia said, smiling. "I figured we could each have one large cubby, one little one, a shelf each, and the others for supplies and entertainment, which we need to figure out."

"I like _this_ galley design best," Caroline said, pointing to one design, one of Giulia's favourites. "I'm glad we went with that one. I love that we're saving those old tiles, they're so pretty. Where are we going to put cleaning products? And – is that a _mini_ - _bar_?" She laughed, glancing at the worktop where Giulia had indeed put together a mini bar – two of everything, vintage, from the antiques her house volunteered up like buried-treasure. Why their family had needed thirteen complete cocktail equipment-sets including muddlers, jigger measures, shakers and strainers, she had no idea, but she'd set aside one set, and two each of beautiful vintage liqueur and martini glasses, setting aside one cupboard in the galley entirely for an 'alcoholic beverage creation-station'.

"Um, it's only the most important thing!" Giulia said, glancing at Caroline, who scoffed, laughing.

"Okay, fair enough," she sighed. "Those teeny glasses are really cute."

"Yeah, and it's all the more fun because we already have enough in the Boarding House to outfit a fleet of teardrop-trailers, so we don't have to waste much expense," Giulia said, and Caroline smiled. She had been watching too much HGTV not to want to upcycle Joshua Salvatore's twin-burner camping stove.

"I can't believe it's _done_ ," Caroline said, turning to stare at the teardrop. Their combined industry had cut the renovation time-frame most others went by, by months. To be honest, Giulia had done quite a lot of the actual building, drafting the plans, making all the calculations for cost, making the trips to _Home Depot_ , fitting the frame and plywood, treating the shell with primer and a treating coat to protect the wood from the elements, fitting the tiny fan to keep the trailer from turning into a 'sweatbox' as Caroline said. The interior of the trailer was done, custom-made cubbies painted, mounted and reinforced. They had cheated a little bit, adding two four-drawer _Ikea_ 'Moppe' mini chest-of-drawers for their little things, and the larger six-drawer one for the galley. The secret storage compartments beneath the floor were fitted – one was a drawer that pulled out all the way through the open door, the others were compartmentalised bins with lift-up hinged doors – and the walls were smoothed and primed for painting after Giulia had fitted the 'window-frame'.

Caroline had already set aside spare bedding, a huge 'road trip kit' in a folding toiletries bag, the tiny Bluetooth speaker she had won at a raffle last year, even a mini cork memo-board for them to pin things to, on the one wall that didn't have a window, door or cubbies, and a _vase_ for flowers to put on the tiny folding Ikea table they had managed to arrange into the underfloor storage, which they planned to use as extra kitchen space and a dining-table.

"I know. We just have to paint it, now," Giulia said softly. It was odd, time seemed to have flown by – she and Caroline had been working on the teardrop on and off for weeks, but Caroline was strong and Giulia, she was intuitive about engineering and architecture. They were both creative, in tune with each other: They truly made an amazing team.

"I was thinking the outside, we could do the lower-half sapphire-blue like your Beetle, and the top-half white," Caroline mused, "so it the roof deflects heat. And the inside, I like this real subtle pale-blue."

"It looks like it has some lavender to it," Giulia said softly.

"Yeah. It's pretty," Caroline said, giving her a sidelong look. She knew why Caroline had picked that colour. It was almost the same hue as Giulia's dad's favourite lilac tree, more lavender-blue than pinkish-purple, pale and delicate.

"It's like Dad's lilac," Giulia said quietly, taking the colour swatch-wheel from Caroline, noticing she had written a little X in pencil on the colour she preferred.

"Yeah," Caroline sighed. "And I thought a soft buttermilk cream for the cubbies and the trim, and the galley. We can paint that now before we install the butcher's block and tile. But stain the top shelf in the galley a little darker to add some contrast."

"You've been watching HGTV again, haven't you," Giulia sighed, sipping her coffee. She shook her head at Caroline's jaunty smile. "Okay, well…we can head over to Home Depot before it closes, get the paint. And some _grouting_."

"Sounds like _fun_!" Caroline grimaced. She had loved every part of the project except for traipsing down the aisles of _Home Depot_ : Giulia usually lost her in the paint and pretty wallpaper section and just filled the cart herself using the meticulous lists Caroline kept. This time, they separated, Giulia going for grouting so she could tile the fold-out section of the galley, and she met Caroline where one of the staff was mixing the paints they had decided on. They had already primed everything as soon as Giulia had fitted it. They left Home Depot with grouting, and tins of 'Blue Gossamer' and 'Warm White' and Caroline had insisted on a half-dozen sample-size pots of paints from buttery yellows, soft sage-greens and lilac-purples to complement the antique tiles Giulia had rescued from an original fireplace found in the attic, ripped out during renovations earlier in the century. She wanted to paint the 'Moppe' drawers in the galley. Giulia indulged her, with barely an eye-roll.

They got back to the Boarding House while it was still light, bearing Chinese takeout and _Jamba Juice_ , and Giulia retrieved Stefan's record-player from upstairs with a few dozen vinyl records, and they listened while they set to work painting – inside first, then they'd finish the exterior. They had saved themselves some awkwardness by treating and painting the hidden-storage under the floor, and had painted the hinged doors themselves before Giulia had installed them; Caroline climbed inside and finished painting the floor, and got started painting the walls. 'Blue Gossamer' for the walls, 'Warm White' for the cubbies, the window-frame and the inside of the door. Humming along to the _Rolling Stones_ on vintage vinyl, Giulia worked on the fold-out compartment she had yet to install with the heavier-duty bracket and hinges. She had treated the cabinet, even the top, and had taped and prepared it for tiling – she had calculated how tall the compartment could be and still tuck it into the galley with the twin-burner stove, lid on, on top. With the last of the dying light, before Caroline turned on the huge outdoor lamps Giulia's dad had kept in the stables, Giulia tiled the cabinet, careful of the narrow wood trim. She got started on painting the galley – 'Warm White', with the buttery-yellow for the 'backsplash' – and Caroline gave a happy cry as she finished painting the last little 'Moppe' cubby, leaving them to dry on the worktop.

"That's me done!" Caroline grinned, bouncing over. "And just in time – I have to be home in a half-hour, so I should get going soon. Hey, those tiles look _amazing_! Do you need a ride anywhere, or are you staying the night?"

"No, I have my car," Giulia said softly. "I won't sleep over; I just want to finish this."

"Okay. Just don't let them bully you," Caroline ordered.

"Yes, ma'am," Giulia said softly. If Stefan being passive-aggressive about Giulia not wanting to help, and Damon being irreverent and drunk was bullying, then yes, the brothers were _bullying_ her, but Giulia just let Stefan's bitching wash over her, too used to his Elena-longing and self-righteousness to care, and she was used to Damon's _moods_. She'd make him a Lemon Drop and he'd be over it – she'd certainly given him no real reason to be angry at _her_ so she had to chalk his mood up to realising he had more self-respect than to be pining over a vanilla replica of the ex-girlfriend he had since learned to hate.

"And – please don't take any more of those painkillers until you're home," Caroline ordered. "And _no saws_."

" _Fine_ ," Giulia grumbled. She was actually disappointed they didn't need to use the hardware and tools anymore – they had blitzed through the frame and plywood in a weekend, with cupcakes and Jamba Juice and music, Caroline's _Katy Perry_ playlist contrasting the spine-tingling buzz of the handheld jigsaw. The best part of the project was that they were doing it _together_. If the whole thing collapsed the first night they slept in the teardrop, at least they'd had fun building it.

* * *

Perhaps it wasn't a long time after Caroline left, or maybe time just slipped away, but either way the dying sun had bled a rich orangey light everywhere, gilding everything, drying the paint, and the grouting. Giulia put the cubbies back into their frames – the white ones inside the trailer, and the yellow, green and lilac ones in the galley – that Caroline had painted. She double-checked the grouting was dry before she worked on attaching the cabinet to the bracket, screwing the twin-burner stove on from underneath, and was taping the outside of the trailer – a pattern she and Caroline had agreed on – to paint the first coat of white over the primer, when she felt a tingle shiver up and down her back.

"Caroline?" she asked, suddenly hyper-aware that it was dark beyond the circle of light from her dad's old utility lights. Immediately taking mental-stock, she calculated the nearest weapon – the handheld jigsaw – to be a good five feet away, while her lap-timer supernatural-dropper was tucked in her backpack under the workbench. All she had on her was a damn paintbrush – it had a wooden handle, at the very least. _That'll do_ , she thought.

It was very dark – and very quiet. Only the crickets chirped in the woods, alive in the night with sounds she had grown up listening to, eating dinner with her dad on the veranda on lingering summer evenings. She couldn't see a thing through the darkness, her dad's lights so brilliant. They shed a halo around the teardrop, sending obscure shadows across the floor.

Boots appeared first. Dark jeans, neat and encasing curvy hips, the sparkle of light off sporadic sequins on a delicate gauzy neckerchief draped around the slender throat of a very pretty lady with short, spiky hair. Perfectly almond-shaped hazel eyes glowed in the light, and Giulia knew who she was immediately.

" _Rose_ ," she said thoughtfully.

"I hoped I wouldn't spook you," she said, her English accent delightful to the ear. She gave Giulia a half-smile. "Slater tells me you're a bit of a bad-arse."

"He's sweet," Giulia said honestly. Slater was a sweet guy – awful taste in women, but that was pretty much a universal failing of the male species. All except Elijah, of course. She sighed softly, setting her paintbrush down. "Why are you here?"

"My friend Lexi once told me Stefan Salvatore is one of the good ones," Rose said sadly.

"You know Lexi?" Giulia raised her eyebrows. If Rose, who had kidnapped Elena, knew _Lexi_ …that was interesting. She had to believe Lexi didn't trouble herself with people she didn't trust, or admire.

"We share the same rare privilege of being some of the few personally turned by Elijah Mikaelson," Rose said sadly. "Of the three Salvatores, Slater told me, and this is his phrasing, not mine, _the tits_ are more likely not to rip my heart out of my chest if I showed my face in Mystic Falls."

"Well, I am the tits – if we all went around saying we were the dark, gorgeous Salvatore things would get confusing," Giulia said, and Rose chuckled softly. She approached the teardrop, looking mildly curious.

"Teardrop… I had one of these in the Thirties," Rose murmured. She heaved a sigh. Giulia didn't press; she had learned that just remaining silent prompted a lot of people to start talking. A particular stare she had worked, too. Rose turned to her, looking strangely vulnerable. "And I don't want to run anymore because I don't have anywhere else to run to."

"You have _everywhere_ ," Giulia said quietly, but she glanced at the teardrop as Rose tested whether the paint was dried.

"If Elijah was still alive I could put more faith in my freedom," Rose said quietly after a few moments of contemplative silence. "But Damon Salvatore killed him – social-media is instantaneous but even Elijah didn't have the time to Tweet about my freedom before he was impaled." She sighed. "Besides Slater I'm the only one who knows about the doppelgänger… Katerina wasn't always a monster but she was never forthright like this young one."

"Elena," Giulia said softly.

"Pardon?"

"The 'young one's' name; it's Elena," Giulia said quietly. Rose gave her an apologetic smile.

" _Elena_ , then. She seems…stronger than Katerina was. Less…"

"Manipulative?" Giulia offered, and Rose gave her another smile. "She's just more subtle about it." Damon had been put off Elena by her manipulation of him – at least with her he'd recognised it, too… _worldly_ not to know what she was doing. He wasn't the innocent young soldier anymore. "Why did you come here?"

"I've never wanted much out of life," Rose said softly. "Over the centuries all I've ever believed in was friendship, and loyalty. Trevor was my best-friend. For five-hundred years I have lived with one person. And he's gone."

Giulia didn't quite think _I'm sorry_ would be quite adequate, so she said nothing.

Glancing at the teardrop, she could imagine smashing it to pieces if anything ever happened to Caroline. Would _she_ want to travel the world without her best-friend, her sister? The one person left on this earth she was absolutely, whole-heartedly sure she loved.

How was Rose even still standing.

Rose sniffed. "Slater and I are the only ones who know about your friend, but more will find out about her. She's on the Internet, and there are some old ones who remember, who escaped Klaus' purge," Rose said quietly. "They know her face. And they'll come for her… When they do, perhaps another vampire to keeping her safe could make all the difference."

Giulia blinked. "You can go anywhere, do anything… Why would you want to risk staying here?" Rose just gave her a sad smile. "I don't… I don't think it's a good idea you stay. The more people who come to town and learn about Elena, the greater the risk Klaus will find out."

"The chances of Klaus _not_ finding out about Elena are slim at best," Rose said, looking grim. "I managed to contact Elijah through a very long chain of acquaintances – most likely, one of those is also an informer to Klaus. He knows." The simple way she said it, so accepting, as if it was a simple, indisputable truth, like clouds produced rain, and Giulia's stomach dipped.

She had been making contingencies for Klaus being informed of Elena's existence – Elijah had spotted her on _Facebook_ , for heaven's sake! – but she and Elijah usually avoided discussing his nastiest sibling. They were playing the game – not just sexually, they were outmanoeuvring each other for the moonstone, for information, for contacts – for Elena herself, and the right to organise the sacrifice on _their_ terms rather than another's. Since Elijah had discovered Elena believed _Giulia_ had the moonstone – one point for observation for the doppelgänger – the game had ramped up a few levels. They didn't discuss their tactics, and Elijah had, for the moment, only until she healed, put a halt on sexually tormenting her for the upper-hand in their little game; she refused to give up the moonstone, and would continue to do so, no matter how many naughty things he did or intriguing toys he produced or how frustrated he left her…

There were worse things to endure.

Like watching one's best-friend be decapitated before one's eyes.

She swallowed, glancing at Rose. Elijah had bitch-slapped a five-hundred-year-old vampire's head off. Spicy Viking Totty he was – but he was also a thousand-year-old vampire engaged in a centuries-long civil-war against his brother – a bitter tug-of-war that reminded her too much of Stefan and Damon's hellacious on-and-off relationship rollercoaster. He was a warlord, a Viking – a warrior honed over hundreds of years. He had survived a brutal upbringing by becoming brutal himself. Merciless, unforgiving of deceit, violent with purpose.

It was easy to forget Elijah was that Viking he hid beneath his expensive Italian-cut suits. That _vampire_.

"I'm sorry about Trevor," Giulia finally said.

"It was always a possibility," Rose said offhandedly, as if she wasn't completely devastated. Looking at her, Giulia wondered if Rose proved her theory – that there was no such thing as an 'Off' switch.

"Still… I'm sorry," she repeated. Rose glanced at her, then back at the wall where her sketches were still pinned up.

"You built this yourself?" she asked, glancing over her shoulder at the teardrop.

"My best-friend Caroline and I built it…together," Giulia said quietly. She saw Rose smile gently.

"When things were wonderful, we used to call them our _adventures_ ," she said, her voice thick. She sniffed, turning to Giulia with a warm smile. "So you're embarking on your first adventures?" Giulia nodded. "Where do you plan to go?"

"Everywhere," Giulia said, her heart lifting as Rose smiled. "Across the U.S. this summer before I…go to school."

"There's nothing quite like it, travelling the world with your best-friend," Rose said softly. "I hope you and your friend have a lot of adventures."

"Caroline will have more than me," Giulia said, without a hint of jealousy. She couldn't be jealous of Caroline for being a vampire. Caroline had an eternity to shower other people with her light, to be that huge boost, that positive, caring influence, that _best-friend_ , long after Giulia would be gone. And that filled Giulia with _something_ …almost as if she'd had a kid, and knew some kind of a legacy would survive her. She had nothing to do with Caroline's…Caroline-ness, but she liked to think Caroline would remember her long after she was gone, and try to fill some other future Giulia's life with that same goodness and _love_.

"Well, then… Savour every minute," Rose said sadly. "Take every opportunity…"

"Are you sure you'd rather stay here than…do just about anything else?" Giulia asked. "Mystic Falls isn't exactly New York…not even _Richmond_!"

"I don't mind the countryside," Rose smiled nostalgically. "The quiet."

The simplest and smartest solution would have been to send Rose on her way. She would only add fat to the fire now burning under the brothers' asses, pushing them to find answers and save the world. But there was some benefit to Rose's staying in town as a third bodyguard, and a decency in offering her a home. Small kindnesses were never forgotten, and even if Damon and Stefan kicked her out, she might remember Giulia at least had agreed to give her room and board.

"I make no promises for how Stefan and Damon will react to you being here," Giulia said, though she could bet Damon would eye Rose up and smirk, and Stefan would brood that Elena's kidnapper had dared set foot in their home.

Well, Giulia still owned the place, and she liked to think she had better judgement than, say, two brothers who had been ready to let history repeat itself over a frail little 'wafer' – a vanilla waif, a term Giulia had come up with whilst driving over this morning, thoroughly pissed off at having to get dressed while Elijah relaxed back against the pillows, laughing richly as she swore under her breath, grumbling several dozen ideas for Stefan and Elena's brutal and gruesome ends.

"I know," Rose said, shrugging slightly. "All I'm asking for is the chance to make amends."

"Hey, no skin off my nose," Giulia shrugged, and indicated Rose to follow her. She packed up, leaving the trailer uncovered so it could dry fully, turned off the lights and picked her flashlight out of her backpack, leading the way back to the house. "I hear you like books."

"I do," Rose said uncertainly, as Giulia invited her over the threshold, into the breakfast-room through the conservatory.

"Careful over here," Giulia said, indicating one particular workbench loaded with familiar purple plants. Not lavender, but too similar for the uneducated to see any difference. Rose eyed the vervain with a bemused expression, and followed Giulia into the house. Rose was five-hundred years old, had been turned in England most likely during the reign of King Henry VII, who had won the crown and ensured a dynasty would continue with his son, the notorious Henry VIII, father to Bloody Mary _and_ the Virgin Queen. Surely Rose could appreciate the neo-Tudor architecture, the moody romanticism and haunted quality of the modestly-named Boarding House. It was known also as 'the creepiest house in Mystic Falls'. But the great room was still grand but much more spacious since she and Damon had started removing unnecessary pieces of furniture, and the library housed an incredibly fine collection, meticulously curated over decades.

"So this…is the library," Giulia said, gesturing around. The fire crackled despite the day's heat – more for its moody, dramatic ambiance than warmth, the only residents cold-blooded.

"Wow," Rose breathed, shaking her head in wonder.

"It's a bit too… _Wuthering Heights_ for my taste," Giulia admitted. She had grown up in this haunted mansion, would always love the room Damon had decorated for her when she became a 'woman' but the exquisite architectural delight by the lake, that was fast becoming her home. _Hers_. She wasn't just a caretaker – she wasn't the Earl of Grantham, merely a custodian, tending to it for every future generation and out of respect for the sacrifice of previous ones. To be honest, she didn't want to live where she was ignored, not appreciated, and unhappy. "The library's really the only room I ever loved." And she couldn't transplant the books to a new home, it would be like a violation.

"What are you doing here?" a voice asked. Stefan.

"Stefan…this is Rose. I don't think you two had the opportunity to introduce yourselves," Giulia said mildly. The tension radiating from Stefan was so thick a hatchet wouldn't do to break it. Damon traipsed in, going straight for the bar. He poured himself some bourbon, and seemed to sense Stefan's glare, because he looked up and glanced over at them. He gave a thoughtful little frown, pointing a finger at Rose, the crystal tumbler glinting in the firelight.

"I remember you. _Rose_ , isn't it. Ancient. 'Fraidy-cat. Kidnap-happy," he said snarkily.

"Rose is here to make all your dreams come true," Giulia said. "A most fortuitous turn of events, for you; Rose wants to do all that I refuse – she wants to devote her existence to saving Elena." She glanced at Rose, patted her on the arm a couple times, and said, " _Enjoy_."

"That's it?" Rose raised her eyebrows, looking incredulous. Giulia shrugged, going to pick out her copy of _Lady Chatterly's Lover_ from the shelf.

"I got you through the door," Giulia said, smiling. "The rest is up to you." She glanced over her shoulder at the archway to the corridor, giving Damon a stern look. "Just don't murder her in front of the books – they _know_."

* * *

 **A.N.** : Because books have feelings too. I like Rose. I think she should've been given a better chance. If you think about it, her life was awful. Five- _hundred_ years without enjoying a glass of Pimm's on a sunny day?


	25. Glitter in the Air

**A.N.** : A long one… Not _that_. Another update – three in one week, is that?

* * *

 **Dangerous Beauty**

 _25_

 _Glitter in the Air_

* * *

They didn't kill Rose. And Damon managed to not sleep with her, which showed good judgement on Rose's part and self-restraint on Damon's.

Giulia received an update next-morning. Damon had invited Rose to stay at the Boarding House, apologising for the state of the upstairs rooms – "Giulia's de-cluttering; she's making a terrible mess" – in exchange for everything Rose knew about the sacrifice and any Originals she'd ever had contact with.

"So Rosemary has joined the game," Elijah said softly, fiddling with the handle of her delicate white bone-china coffee-cup, leaning against the kitchen counter.

"Mm, apparently," Giulia said, flipping a raspberry pancake in the skillet. _Breakfast_ , she smiled, adding the last to a pile with ricotta cheese and shelled pistachios, and local honey rather than maple syrup. Elijah had an _insatiable_ sweet-tooth, and she had figured she should treat him to a home-cooked breakfast after he had been so… _obliging_ while she healed. She was still healing, her bruise was a glorious greenish yellow now, but she was a lot better than she was, and Meredith had even cleared her to go to the gym and do _light_ workouts.

She knew she'd feel fresh as a damn daisy by this time Thursday – it was the full-moon Wednesday-night. As achy as her ribs sometimes still felt, she knew they'd be a paper-cut compared to the full-body crush Tyler would go through then.

"I would have thought she would take her freedom and run with it," Elijah mused.

"Well, seeing as you're _dead_ she doesn't think there's anyone to ensure her freedom," Giulia said, offering Elijah the plate of pancakes and a top-up on his cup of coffee. He gave her a gentle smile, and stole in for a kiss.

"Thank you," he whispered, nuzzling her nose and giving her another, tiny kiss before setting his coffee-cup down and attacking his pancakes with indecent enthusiasm. Breakfast had become her favourite meal – because of what preceded it, and usually because of what followed. _Gratitude_. "Are you in Richmond today?"

"I have a full day of classes," Giulia nodded. She had caught up from the physical exhaustion affecting her mental productivity, and glad of it. She hated having mental dexterity tempered by being physically drained. She would admit she had felt some twinges when she went for a light jog around the lake this morning, but it was her first since sparring with Tyler at the gym and she knew she had to take it steady or risk hurting herself again. She needed to be at full-capacity but refused to imbibe vampire-blood to cheat her way out of a natural process. She would not cross that line. "I'll probably be holed up in the library until late."

"What would you like when you get home?" Elijah asked, and Giulia smiled warmly.

"Something small."

"As to that, I can make no promises whatsoever," Elijah said, and Giulia smirked, eyeing him up shamelessly.

"Oh, _Elijah_! I meant _food_ ," she clarified, and Elijah's dark eyes twinkled.

"Tonight, then," he smiled, and Giulia nodded, giving him a kiss that gave her a taste of tart raspberries and strong black coffee. She went and finished getting ready, pulling on a simple black dress with a delicate floral pattern and pulled her hair out of its ponytail so waves tumbled around her shoulders, drew on some winged eyeliner and headed out the door with one final, lingering kiss.

The awful thing was, she knew she would miss this. Not the supernatural drama – sharing breakfasts with Elijah. _Playing_ when she woke up snuggled and cosy with him, happy, delighted. She was excited by him, couldn't stop thinking about him when she was apart from him – the dreaded 'L' word whispered through her mind and she batted it away. That was dangerous. She wasn't a girl who wanted that happily-ever-after – but sooner or later things would come to a head and the people she loved would realise she had been literally sleeping with their enemy. Delightedly, and as often as she could.

She hadn't really thought about it – what would come _after_?

After Elijah. After the sacrifice. After Elijah got what he wanted. After Stefan and Damon decided to leave town. They would leave.

Giulia pulled into the student parking-lot and strode across to her first lecture-theatre, notebook and pens at the ready as she settled into _her_ seat, phone on silent and reading-glasses in place as she skim-read through the text she had highlighted the other day, refreshing her memory.

"Giulia, you got a minute?" She glanced over her shoulder at the familiar voice, tucking her things into her backpack. It wasn't surprising Sheila had sought her out; Giulia always sat at the front of her lectures because of her reading-glasses and she usually loitered with Miss Sheila for a chat. They'd just had a lecture on East African voodoo and its links to New Orleans covens. She'd been distracted when Sheila dismissed the class by several texts – Cara, asking her to ask Ashlyn if she had stolen her glitter tie-dye Barbie roller-skates; Kaitlyn from the cheerleading team asking her to referee Caroline while they organised Sarah's memorial; Kelly, inviting her to a jive date; and one from the delivery-company tracking her online shop – and a voicemail from her dad's financial-advisor about their quarterly meeting with the accountant. Joy.

"Always," Giulia smiled. "That was a creepy lecture."

"Wasn't it?" Sheila grinned. "I always enjoy the creepy ones."

"You can tell," Giulia said. "What's up?"

"Just wonderin' if you've made a decision yet," Sheila said, packing away her laptop and briefcase. Giulia let out a sigh.

"I _have_ ," she admitted.

"You're leavin' us," Sheila knew.

"Not 'til September," Giulia assured her. "You've got me until June."

"Well, at least I'll have your essays to give as examples."

"Oh, that's not fair; don't fill teh other kids with dread that they'll never produce work like that," Giulia teased, almost completely not serious. Sheila chuckled.

"I'll reserve it for the PhD students," she chuckled. "It's a shame you'll be leaving us, but it's good you're making the leap. Reckon you'll be cowpats in a field in New York, you'll love it." Giulia knew she'd love it. Of the offers she had received after applying, she'd been most excited by the NYU prospectus and course catalogue. She was thinking longer-term about her degree – her _future_. And she wanted to live and _play_ in New York.

"So, have you told anyone else?"

"Just you," Giulia said quietly. Sheila gave her a look. "Who else would I tell?" Sheila kept her opinion to herself, they'd had this talk before and she knew where Giulia stood on the matter. Giulia had no _parents_ , she hadn't been left to a guardian like Elena and Jeremy. She had bonded with Ric and Jenna, adored Liz, and sort of missed manicures with Carol – but they were not her _parents_. They were not emotionally invested in her wellbeing any more than being vaguely concerned she ate her veggies and did her homework.

And she didn't want to make a big deal about it. She already got weird looks for attending classes at UV. People seemed unnerved she had been signed off as a graduate halfway through her junior year of high-school so she could become a full-time college-student.

Tell people she had applied and been accepted to Brown, NYU, Columbia and Yale? She had received the last offer from Yale on Saturday and had to really think about her options. She hadn't bothered to apply anywhere in the Midwest and wasn't a 'California girl', that was Caroline's territory, and she couldn't justify flying across the Atlantic for interviews at Oxbridge, but applying there had been a possibility. Without her dad, she was reliant only on her own instincts – and she missed his advice.

He'd be blown away that she'd received four offers for full-rides. Not surprised, but proud of her. The fact that she was considering this – leaving home, leaving the state, leaving _Caroline_ – would stagger him. He'd always feared she'd only go where Caroline got accepted, regardless of her offers, holding herself back rather than risk hurting Caroline's feelings.

Neither of them were the same girls they had been eight months ago.

Giulia didn't have to worry so much about Caroline now. Their relationship wouldn't suffer if Giulia left; Caroline wouldn't crumble. This gave them both a chance to _fly_. And Caroline would have to learn to go it alone; Giulia wouldn't be around forever.

"It's a good thing, Giulia," Sheila said gently. "People should be able to congratulate you." Giulia just shrugged. "So I've got you 'til June, huh? Guess I'll just have to give my favourite lectures so you don't miss out."

"I'll still be coming back to visit," Giulia assured her. "Your lectures are definitely worth the effort."

"That's sweet of you," Sheila smiled. Her T.A. handed her a note and Sheila sighed as she skimmed it. "I'd best be leavin'. Oh – I did that thing you asked me. And here. Hopefully we won't regret makin' 'em." She handed Giulia a bundle of mismatched bracelets – leather, braided and beaded embroidery-thread, a charm bracelet – and Giulia breathed a sigh of relief.

"Thank you!" Giulia said earnestly. "I hope you're keeping an account of the favours I owe you."

"Of course," Sheila said, utterly serious. The Bennetts and the Salvatores had been connected since the 1860s by a mutually-beneficial alliance: the Salvatores (Damon) protected the Bennett line and the Bennetts protected the Salvatores. Giulia and Sheila had a far better relationship than just grudging allies: Giulia was firstly _human_ , and Sheila knew she was looking at the bigger picture. Yes, she had fallen out with Bonnie, but Giulia would still do all she could to protect her. She didn't want anyone caught in any Original crosshairs.

Hence, contingencies.

Making Sheila amazing cocktails she'd learned from FaceTime with Kol, so Sheila would grant her some favours. Booze for bracelets – Giulia got the better end of that deal, but Sheila would cash in all those favours for something she desperately needed at some scarily vague future date.

After her final morning class, she exited the stuffy seminar-room, her phone buzzing.

"Font of all knowledge, state your reference, please," Giulia chirped, pushing her reading-glasses on top of her head as she followed the crowd downstairs and out into the courtyard.

" _Hey. Meet us for coffee_ ," Damon ordered.

"I'll meet you for _lunch_." One of the more handsome guys in her class had kept giving her funny looks every time her stomach grumble; she'd forgotten the dried fruit and nuts she usually brought for a mid-morning snack to get her through to the later lunch-hour.

" _You will? That was easy. I didn't even have to wheedle_ ," Damon said, sounding surprised.

"Yeah, well, I'm starving. Where am I meeting you?"

" _Rose is driving me to some Scandi café by your campus_ ," Damon said, with a long-suffering sigh. He didn't like being a passenger.

"Oh, Slater's? I know it. If you get there before me, please order me an open shrimp and egg sandwich and a semla bun – and a coffee. If he says there are no more buns, tell him it's for Giulia," she said, tugging her backpack on as she hurried across campus.

Slater greeted her with a tray loaded with food – steaming fresh-ground coffee, an open shrimp and sliced hard-boiled egg sandwich with a wedge of lime, gherkins and chips, and an unassuming bun with flavourful cardamom cream. He set the tray down at the table where Damon and Rose sat sipping spiked coffees, and Slater's laptop stood open, whirring softly. He had obviously been working on something for school.

"This is a rare treat. Two Salvatores in one day," Slater said, after he'd given Giulia a kiss on the cheek. "How were classes?"

"Amazing. Miss Sheila's lecture has inspired me to travel to darkest Africa. One wonders how the White Man got away with so much during colonisation with all that hardcore voodoo going on," Giulia said; Slater was a fellow intellectual who got as giddy as she did about research projects – and they enjoyed sharing their academic passions.

"The mind boggles," Damon said drily. "Can we focus? We're talking moonstones."

"God, you've got that bit between your teeth again, have you?" Giulia grumbled, squeezing the lemon over her sandwich. "Do like Etta do; Let it Be."

" _I can't_ ," Damon enunciated. "Stefan's already giving it to me about _you_."

Giulia's eyes widened. "Giving _what_ to you?" She gave him a lecherous smirk; he gave her a withering look. "Damon, I'm not going to help you do something I think is dangerous for _us_ as a collective, not just to safeguard one girl."

"If we can figure out how to render that damn moonstone useless, we can stop the sacrifice," Damon urged.

"And what witch have you ever met who'd screw around with another witch's spells, if they even _can_? I'd say most witches wouldn't want a thing to do with a spell that would screw up nature's balance," Giulia said. She and Sheila – whom she had let in on the secret – had debated the curse; even if it _had_ been a curse on werewolves and vampires, no witch would risk the repercussions of vampires able to walk in the sun and werewolves able to change at will.

"But witches put the curse in place to begin with," Rose reasoned.

"Because there was no _balance_ ," Giulia pointed out. She had to have this argument like she didn't already know it was all a farce, that Slater's computers weren't still running a search for her so she could learn the true nature of a _werepire_.

"Why would this Klaus guy want Elena any more than just some random?" Damon asked the busy room in general. What Sirius said was true: the busier a place, the less likely they were to be overheard. "What makes him so special?"

"When he wants something, he gets it," Rose said plainly.

"So if he doesn't know about Elena, he won't want to lift the curse," Giulia pointed out.

"Like Stefan said, we've no way to tell Klaus doesn't already know about her," Rose said. "Slater's cool, he won't say anything, and obviously I'm not going to. But it's anyone else who might've picked up something and wants to score points."

"But why would anyone need to contact Klaus?" Slater asked. "This curse if it's broken by a vampire will allow all vampires to walk in the sun, and keep werewolves yoked to the moon-cycle. It seems to me the best form of defence to protect your friend is to prevent word of her existence from disseminating."

"And how do we do that?"

"Lock her in a tower until her hair's long enough to shimmy up!" Giulia suggested, quoting Lorelai Gilmore. "By which time Elena will be a haggard old beast no-one would ever associate with the glorious Katerina Petrova."

"Rapunzel. Really? _That's_ your solution?"

"I didn't think Stefan would appreciate her joining a closed nunnery," Giulia said, after swallowing a mouthful of food.

"Can you be serious, please?" Damon asked. It was annoying her that _he_ was being so serious. The last thing he'd been so committed to was opening that damn tomb – the beginning of all their problems!

"I am being serious – I don't think chasing ghosts is a wise course of action," Giulia said earnestly. "I've said it before, the more you dig, the more you expose your back to any number of dangers you can't see coming."

"Good analogy," Slater muttered.

"Thank you," Giulia smiled. She popped the last of her sandwich into her mouth, eyeing her semla bun as she sipped her coffee. "Anyway – you won't get anywhere without the moonstone."

"Elena thinks you have it," Damon said, giving Giulia that intense, no bullshit, cross-me-and-I'll-rip-your-heart-out look that usually made people quake. "Tell me where it is."

A bomb exploded.

Ears ringing, dazed, she was dimly aware of several things: screaming; car-alarms blaring; glitter in the air; something tickling down the neck of her dress; a stinging burn in her right knee; her semla bun glittering with glass; something unyielding gripping her under her arms, pulling her away from the table as she sat dazed, mind trying to process what had overwhelmed her senses.

The sudden and intense gloom made her blink quickly, her ringing ears distorting every echo in a closed multi-storey parking garage. If she had run out of her own accord or been carried, she had no clue.

"Who was behind that?" Damon demanded, as Giulia kind of leaned against a cement pillar, her knee stinging, throbbing a little bit.

"I don't know," Rose blurted in the passenger-seat of her blacked-out SUV. "Where's Slater?"

"Iowa, by now, who the hell knows?" Damon grumbled.

"He's a good guy, he wouldn't betray us," Rose choked – Giulia watched her burned, patchy skin heal itself in a daze.

"Then who did?" Damon growled, and clarity soothed Giulia's jangled nerves from the tips of her fingers to her toes. Elijah.

 _Son of a bitch_!

That _bastard_ had blown up a café window – with her inside!

What had they been talking about? The last thing Damon had said to her – tell him where the moonstone was.

That _bastard_!

Soothing clarity morphed into cold rage as quickly as Rose's face healed.

He had blown up a café with her inside it – as a warning!

Psychological warfare was a tactic as old as time.

Instead of scaring her, Elijah had just managed to piss her off.

And she'd even made him pancakes this morning.

No more.

She'd heard of being played hot and cold – but this was _glacial_.

"C'mon, we gotta get out of here before the emergency-services show up," Damon muttered, tucking Rose into the car. He gestured to Giulia, whose leg wobbled, trembling, as she strode forward. She glanced down.

"Are you kidding me?!" she cried indignantly. "Meredith _just_ signed me off as gym-worthy."

"It's superficial," Damon shrugged, tucking her carefully into the car. She kept her right leg outstretched, sitting at an odd angle in the backseat.

"Damon, there is glass impaled in my knee!"

"Oh, don't be so dramatic," Damon chided. "It's hardly bleeding."

"Well, yeah, now, because that glass is stopping the blood-flow – they take that glass out, we'll be in Niagara Falls!" Giulia grumbled, holding her knee and peering a little closer. Damon sighed, shaking his head.

"D'you need the hospital?" Giulia peered at her wound.

"Nah, just drop me off on campus, I can see the campus doctor and head over to my next class," Giulia sighed. She didn't even get to eat her semla bun, and she reflected on it mournfully as Damon drove Rose's SUV toward the UV campus.

She'd wanted to give Elijah a real thank you for looking after her while she healed.

His balls weren't going to be blue – they'd be freaking _indigo_ by the time she got through with him.

He'd thought their game was intense before – _ha_!

With three stitches to her knee, Giulia hobbled to her afternoon classes and her evening lecture, eating diner in Miss Sheila's office, a treasure-trove of occult goodies Giulia was slowly making her way through, books and artefacts from long-dead cultures the world had otherwise forgotten. Miss Sheila gave her an icepack for her knee and they chatted about their most recent lecture over an amazing daal, greens, roti and grilled paneer cheese from a small unknown Indian restaurant that, according to notorious lush Miss Sheila, did an amazing bellini with raspberries and lychee. No bellinis, but Miss Sheila did stock her office with a very good mini-bar: her Moscow Mules packed a good wallop, and she made mint juleps teh way her mama taught her – Sheila's daddy was a Louisiana native, a civil rights activist long before Dr King or Malcolm X came to prominence. And, like Sheila, he'd loved his liquor. Half the reason Sheila was a professor of the occult was her father's connections to New Orleans magic.

She gave Miss Sheila a ride home after one too many mint juleps, and picked her up early Tuesday morning. Giulia's knee ached, and she had glared at Elijah so venomously as she combed the remaining glass out of her hair that night, that he had stayed out of her way. He left the house even before she did; they had been acting like an old married couple, lights off, no talking. She was annoyed at him, especially as the warmth of her sheets made her knee throb.

Giulia had a free period after her first morning seminar, and a full schedule until six p.m. She was loaded down with work; she sent Elijah a text to feed Firenze, and crossed campus to reach teh library, intending to blitz through her reading and coursework assignments, as her phone rang.

She didn't recognise the number. "Giulia Salvatore."

" _Are you in Richmond_?"

" _Rose_?" Giulia blinked. She guessed Damon had shared her contact-details. "Yes, I'm at school."

" _Don't be angry with me_ ," Rose said anxiously.

"Not a good start to the conversation." Giulia paused, the sun beating down on her, unseasonably hot, as Rose told her what was going on. Sadness blossomed like a flower, something cinching in her stomach uncomfortably, and rage simmered under her skin like tiny itchy bubbles. "Just – I'll be there in five."

Slater's studio-loft had taken on a new vibe in the early-evening sunshine Rose was basking in, safe behind double-paned, tempered glass windows, watching the goings-on at the park across the street from Slater's building. Alice gaped at Giulia as she strode over the threshold, and Elena jumped guiltily when she turned and saw Giulia glaring down at her.

"What are you doing here?" Giulia glared.

"What are _you_ doing here?!" Elena blurted, rounding on Rose. "You called _her_? You said that you understood."

"Let's not start pointing fingers about misleading people, shall we?" Giulia said coolly, and Elena gave her a very nasty look.

"Have you called Damon?" Rose asked.

"I'd rather not. I'm quite capable of physically restraining anyone if need be," Giulia said, eyes on Elena. She glanced at Rose. "Please could you compel Alice, I wrote this down on my way over. And put this on."

"Um…thank you?" Rose said, eyeing the subtle expanding silver chain with a dainty lightning-bolt dangling from it that Giulia offered her.

"Trust me, you'll need it; put it on," Giulia said, giving her a stern look, and Rose shrugged as she slipped the bracelet over her hand, giving Giulia a look; Giulia adjusted the expandable chain so that it fit snugly around Rose's wrist. Rose took Alice by the arm, leading her out of the room as she read the scrap of paper Giulia had given her.

"Why are you here?" Elena grumbled, as Giulia started powering down all Slater's computers. She had seen a pair of Doc Marten-clad feet sticking out of another room, and aside from wrenching the stake out of his chest, refused to dwell. He knew who it was, she'd mourn later; but for the moment, she had things to do, and not a lot of time to do it. And she knew Slater wouldn't mind her commandeering his tech; she actually appreciated what it was capable of, respected all that information in one place – wouldn't abuse it.

"Saving us from your superb selfishness," Giulia said, disconnecting the monitors quickly. "Rose – help me with these, would you? Can you put them in your car?"

"Er – yes," Rose sighed. Giulia got the impression Rose would do exactly what she asked without question – she knew she was in trouble. And though she was more than twice Damon's age, it was far safer to ask Giulia for help than admit she'd already screwed up. Not her fault; she'd discovered how manipulative Elena could be already. She'd used a guilt-trip and an excuse of wanting information to get to Slater, where she had coaxed a password from Alice on the promise of being turned, and used Slater's connections to contact one of Elijah's acquaintances – and offer herself up on a silver platter.

"My _selfishness_? I'm trying to save all of you."

"Stupidity, then."

Rose loaded herself up with towers of computers, darting off. Giulia turned to Elena with a dangerous glare as soon as she was gone.

"Rose spent half a millennium running from the Originals because of Katherine," she said icily. She didn't know Rose at all, but she had great style and a calm demeanour. She had balls of solid steel and believed in, above all things, loyalty and friendship. "I won't let her spend the next few centuries on the run from Stefan and Damon on account of _you_."

"So you're here to get Rose out of trouble, not to stop me from giving myself up."

"Mostly. But I'll still break your knees before I let you run off on a suicide-mission," Giulia said sharply, looping cables around her arm and tucking them into her backpack.

"You know this Cody guy is on his way over."

"I heard," Giulia said unconcernedly. "Let's just hope Rose will be a dear and shield you if the boogie-man comes a-knockin'."

Elena jumped a mile as the front-doors banged open, Slater's security-chains rattling as the doors ricocheted off the walls.

"Oh, what fresh hell is this?" Giulia sighed, turning around.

"We're here for the doppelgänger," Head Thug declared. There were three of them, unremarkable guys in their late-twenties to early-thirties, dressed the same as every other guy on the street.

"Thank you for coming," Elena spoke up, starting forward. Giulia caught her by the elbow, hard enough to leave marks.

"Yes, thank you. _I'm_ the one who called you," Giulia said. She wasn't. He wouldn't notice. He didn't look particularly sharp. And she put on such a tone of irreverent authority that he wouldn't question her. She turned to Elena and gave her a glacial look. " _Sit down_." Elena sat, _looking...frightened._ "I assume you've made necessary arrangements to get us to Klaus." She gave the Thugs an imperious look.

Thugs Two and Three frowned, looking confused.

"Klaus? We're gonna deliver the doppelgänger to Elijah," Head Thug said. Obviously Rose hadn't said a word to anyone about Elijah being killed by Damon – just as Giulia had guessed.

"By _we_ , you of course mean _me_. I, after all, discovered her; I shall be the one to cash in all those favours with the Originals," Giulia said coolly, levelling him with a flawless, marble-like expression that dared him to contradict her. She was glad she had made a little more effort with her outfit this morning; there was nothing that ruined the effect of complete authority like a slobbish appearance. The two lesser Thugs glanced at each other as Giulia swung her keychain around her finger, completely confident and relaxed. "Does no-one else know what the plan is?"

"No, we came straight over as soon as the sun set," Head Thug said confusedly. Giulia turned that flawless look on him, and she swore he quailed. She sighed heavily, and clicked the lap-timer in her pocket. All three started wailing, writhing on the floor, clutching their heads.

Whipping the stake from her backpack, Giulia pounced, killing Head Thug before he knew what was happening. Two swiped out at her, starting to recover his wits; she dodged and shoved upward with her bloody stake, the soft flesh of his unguarded stomach giving way, the stake driving through his hear from below. Three gasped and crumpled to the floor before he could really find his feet.

Giulia blinked.

She stared at the bloody heart being proffered casually in the palm of someone's hand like a gift.

A heartbeat, and Giulia frowned up at Elijah from the desiccating heap at her feet as Elena gasped.

"He still counts as mine!"

Elijah gave her a smirk, eyes warm, the heart tumbling gently from his hand. He was gone before it had stopped rolling across the floor.

It was a few seconds before anyone moved.

Then Giulia realised Rose was gone. She hadn't even see her flee – she must have used the shady fire-escape. Didn't blame her at all, but it left Giulia in quite a predicament. She turned to Elena and sighed heavily.

She was always called in to clean up the mess, to correct the mistakes. Pulling out her phone, she made a few calls, moved Slater's body, and silently fumed as she drove back to campus with Elena in the passenger-seat.

"Aren't you taking me back to Mystic Falls?" Elena prompted, following her out of the car as if she couldn't believe Giulia wasn't racing down the freeway to fling her at Stefan and Damon. Giulia gave her a look that stopped Elena from daring to ask any more questions for at least a good hour and a half. She followed silently to the library, where Giulia signed her in as a guest and sat her down at a table she had booked downstairs. The lower level of the library always had a soft buzz, a good, pleasant atmosphere of kids researching, typing their papers, using the private rooms for group-assignments; Giulia knew quite a few people studying there, and while she read, highlighting her textbooks with colour-coordinated annotations, typing rapid-fire on her laptop inserting references, images and footnotes to essays before sending them to the printer, she had a few chats with kids in her classes. It was nearly May; party-season was fast approaching before everyone buckled down to study for finals. She was invited to a few parties – which she and Caroline _would_ be attending for a Tap'n'Sip buffet – rescheduled a study-session for a group project and made a note of the next Social Committee meeting when she ran into the president, who congratulated her on her team's score for the ongoing city-wide Treasure Hunt, before taking the information a classmate had printed off about amazing things to do in and around San Francisco, their hometown.

Elena looked superbly bored and annoyed for the four hours Giulia kept her sat at their table – Giulia didn't allow her reading material or her phone to keep herself entertained. Giulia wanted to punish her; no amount of huffing, nasty looks or grumbling tummies softened her to leave the library any earlier than she wanted to, until she had finished her reading and proofread the final few paragraphs of her two one-hundred-page theses she had been working on for weeks, ready to take to _Staples_ in the morning to have printed and professionally bound.

She wouldn't say it aloud, but as much as it was beneficial to Giulia to stay in the library, it was also good for Elena, too. Whether those idiots had told the truth about no-one knowing where they had been going, or why, they had to be especially careful. In a crowded building with too many people to collectively compel with any real finesse, and too many to kill to stay under the radar, was as good a place as any. And it meant her study schedule wasn't completely railroaded; she needed to keep tomorrow-night free, and she didn't want to spend all weekend up to her eyeballs in textbooks because she had to play catch-up.

It was actually dark when they left the library. Elena looked more tired and grumpy than Giulia, who had actually been doing work! Giulia kept an eye out as they crossed campus, but everything was fine; Elena grumbled again, but looked unnerved when Giulia stopped outside a bleak-looking building. Damon had compelled the manager and one of the workers at the Mystic Falls crematorium to do whatever Giulia asked of them; she had made a call earlier in the afternoon asking them to collect four bodies, and wanted to check on the progress, instructing them to contact her when Slater was ready for collection. She wanted the other ashes disposed of at landfill, but Slater…he was her friend. And he deserved all his PhDs and Masters acknowledged on his gravestone after his name.

Only after she had checked on Slater did she park her Beetle outside the white, perfect, sad house and frog-march Elena to the door. The windows on the ground-floor were amber; and an irate Jenna met them at the door in her pyjamas, white-lipped. Ric, bleary-eyed and rumpled behind her, blinked at them.

" _Where were you_?!"

It was nearly two hours passed Elena's curfew. Oops. Well, at least Elena couldn't be considered as a flight-risk after Jenna grounded her skinny ass. Ever since Giulia had outed everything to Jenna, she had been a hardass about Jeremy and Elena being accountable. She didn't want the supernatural drama seeping into every aspect of their lives; curfew was strictly enforced, Jenna had grounded Jeremy for not turning in some homework assignments, and if they forgot to tell her they were staying out after school, they were in deep shit. Jenna worried. She'd chuckled exhaustedly after Elena had received her first grounding when she hadn't told Jenna she was staying the night with Stefan, telling Giulia that she worried about Jeremy and Elena once for herself, and twice more for Miranda and Grayson.

"Giulia?" Ric frowned, looking more bemused than angry.

"Elena will explain," Giulia said lightly. "Goodnight."

* * *

 **A.N.** : What's next, you ask? Tyler. Because we've already seen Elena's OMG reaction to Elijah being alive.


	26. Bound

**A.N.** : The quote from the new WonderWoman trailer really encapsulates Giulia: "What I do is not up to you." So perfect. Add a splash of Gal Gadot to Damon Salvatore and Kendall Jenner, with, well, boobs, and you've got Giulia. Anybody seen the trailer for _King Arthur: Legend of the Sword_?

* * *

 **Dangerous Beauty**

 _26_

 _Bound_

* * *

"You know, if you're going to ground me, you could at least limit it to house-arrest. Having Bonnie magically _bind_ me to being within fifty feet of _Caroline_ all day, was _that_ necessary?" Elena asked, stomping through the front-door. She let it slam shut, scowling as she trudged into the kitchen, where she could see Jenna's textbooks spread out on the table.

"Elena… I'm glad you're home," Jenna said sombrely, and Elena immediately frowned, deflated by Jenna's apparent lack of desire to hash out last night's argument again. She had never seen Jenna angrier than last night – the atmosphere in the house this morning had been sub-arctic as they had all prepared breakfast and brown-bag lunches in absolute, glacial silence.

Props to Ric for sticking it out, though. Anyone else would've run a mile; he'd only ever seen feisty Jenna, sweet Jenna. He'd seen scared-out-of-her-mind Jenna and been there all night, staying up with her while she waited for Elena to get home, utterly panicked.

And when she had guiltily explained why she had missed curfew, well… That was a kind of rage Elena had never seen, would never have dreamed Jenna was capable of. But it was Ric's disappointment in her, his concern for a panicked, upset Jenna, that had made her truly ashamed.

Elena had…had _hurt_ Jenna.

She hadn't even realised the implications of what she was doing – just _leaving_.

Not even saying _goodbye_ – Jenna had asked how Elena could _do_ that to them. To Jenna, who had given up her life as a grad-student who smoked pot and couldn't keep a plant alive to be her parent, and Jeremy, who had suffered through the loss of more people in his sixteen years than any kid should ever have to – all of them devastatingly sudden deaths he still had no closure from.

Jenna had asked how Elena could be so selfish.

She was the second person who had asked her that. Giulia had been the first, pointing out how Elena manipulating her had put Rose's life in danger.

Elena just…didn't want anyone to get hurt because of her.

"I came straight home from school, just like you said," Elena grumbled, defeated. After really thinking about what she had done, the ramifications she hadn't even considered, she had spent the entire day replaying what happened at Slater's studio and her argument with Jenna.

She kind of saw that having no car-privileges, no social-life and no Stefan was Jenna letting her off _light_ for what she'd done. Binding her to the only vampire who was paranoid about her GPA dipping past a 4.0 and so never skipped a math class, even, was a creative way of ensuring Elena didn't slip away when she was supposed to be at school. There was no way Caroline, who was the yin to Giulia's yang in Team Giuline, would ever be convinced to let Elena do anything stupid like give herself up to Klaus.

"We're in here," Jenna said, and Elena glanced into the den.

She was actually so shocked she dropped her backpack, her body juddering with fear and recognition.

Elijah smiled from the leather couch, completely out of place in his expensive suit and shiny hair amongst unfinished jigsaw puzzles, Jeremy's video-game cases and the clutter of a busy family-home where no-one even knew where the _Swiffer_ lived.

"Elena, why don't you come and sit down," Jenna said gently, seeing that Elena was frozen in place, gaping at Elijah. He looked so calm, so unconcerned. Jenna looked nervous, but no more than she had when the social-worker had made their scheduled visit to check things were going okay. She glanced from Jenna to Elijah and back.

"You invited him in?" she breathed, her stomach disappearing entirely. Jenna glanced at Elijah.

"Please do forgive the intrusion," Elijah said, in that gentle, intriguing, terrifying voice of his. His features were handsome, his expression mild. Everything about him said… _manners_. He was from a time the rest of the world had forgotten. Old-world elegance with very expensive shoes. "I mean your family no harm. Your aunt Jenna and I both agreed it high time we all had a little chat. Please, if you need to have a snack, I'll wait; you must have had a long day." She was actually starving for dinner, too annoyed to eat her lunch, and granted no cash from Jenna to assign to her student I.D. to scan in the cafeteria for something during break. But the idea of even turning her back to Elijah for a second made her nerves stretch so tight she thought they might snap.

"I'm good," she said tersely. He had been invited in. He was allowed into her home – he could come in any time he wanted… Just like Slater's studio, were he had killed the third vampire who had been regaining enough equilibrium and mental faculties to maybe have put Giulia through her paces. She hadn't even known he was there until he was smirking at Giulia almost teasingly as that bloody heart he'd yanked out through the vampire's back rolled to the floor.

She swallowed, watching Elijah fiddle idly with a few of the _Scrabble_ pieces Giulia had laid out in a dirty word when she'd been playing with Jeremy the last time she'd come over to tutor him in Chemistry. "Why did you kill that vampire when he and his friends came to take me?"

"Because I didn't want you to be taken," Elijah said simply, giving her a beguiling smile she couldn't make out. He reached for the coffee-cup Jenna had just refilled for him – she was using her mom's prettiest cups and saucers, and Elena could see why. Elijah looked like a guy who was used to the finest things in life. He probably had an _Aston Martin_ and his girlfriends were all staggeringly beautiful Bond girls with fangs.

At her suspicious, disbelieving look, Elijah smiled slightly. "Klaus is the most hated and feared of the Originals, but those who fear him are desperate for his approval. Word gets out that a doppelgänger exists, there'll be a line of vampires eager to take you to him, and I can't have that." He set his coffee-cup down with a gentle _chink_ and an enigmatic smile.

"Isn't that exactly what you're trying to do?" Elena asked, frowning. She couldn't believe she was having this conversation – with _Elijah_ , whom she had seen staked through the heart, pinioned to a door by Damon, in her _house_ , where she was supposed to be safe from vampires.

"Let's just say that my goal is not to break the curse," Elijah said, with a subtle shrug.

"So what _is_ your goal?" Elena asked.

"Klaus's obsessions have made him paranoid, he's a recluse – those in his immediate circle would claim they alone are who he places his trust in. In truth, Klaus does now know _how_ to trust," Elijah explained casually. He gave her a measuring look. "For decades I have been trying to track him down. _You_ are the very thing I needed to draw him out of hiding."

"You're trying to use _me_ to get in contact with this Klaus guy?" Elena frowned. That seemed a little extreme. Hadn't he heard of social-media?

"Well, to do that I need you to stay put and stop trying to get yourself killed," Elijah said mildly, accusation lacing his words. Jenna, who'd stayed very quiet, glanced at Elena. "I'm very glad at least you have one friend with the presence of mind to take mystical precautions against vampires. As a species we're the devil to kill. I was pleasantly surprised two of your assailants had already been killed by the time I showed up."

"How did you know where I was – that I was in danger?"

"You know, I noticed you have a friend – Bonnie, is it? – who seems to possess the gift of magic," Elijah said softly, and Elena swallowed. Had he been spying on her? For how long – clearly, he hadn't stayed dead when Damon had pinned him to that door through the heart – had he tracked them down? What about – had _Rose_ helped him? What if she'd returned to the house after she had left with Stefan and Damon, to get her things, and maybe bury her friend? What if she had come to Mystic Falls offering to help Stefan and Damon _for Elijah_? "I also have friends with similar gifts."

"You know witches," Elena sighed. Bonnie had been _gushing_ about the new kid in their History class, Luka. Grams hadn't liked him when she'd picked Bonnie up from school one day; she'd warned Bonnie to stay away. So Luka and his creepy dad were Elijah's witches.

"And a good thing. If I hadn't arrived when I had, there was a good possibility your friend Giulia Salvatore might now be dead," Elijah said softly. "Miss Salvatore is gaining notoriety in the supernatural community, people are becoming very aware of what she is capable of – yet she is still so exquisitely _human_. Astounding, what she is courageous enough to attempt, and yet that vampire last evening would have still had the strength to rip her head off despite his mental confusion."

"You mean, the way you bitch-slapped Trevor's head off right in front of his best-friend?" Elena said coldly. She'd gone through a lot in the last eight months, but _that_ was now a recurring nightmare.

"Precisely," Elijah answered, unfazed. "I noticed Rosemary fled the sight of me. I do hope she has the presence of mind to stay away; after earning her freedom with such bitter consequences, it would be such a waste that she get tangled up in all this."

"You want me to believe you actually _care_ about her getting mixed up with this sacrifice crap?" Elena asked, raising her eyebrows. "You murdered her best-friend right in front of her."

"For half a millennium, Rosemary's loyalty to Trevor never faltered," Elijah said softly, something gentling his features. Sadness, Elena thought. "That kind of devotion is rare, I have seen it in my long lifetime…perhaps a handful of times. It would be a shame to lose a soul as loyal and compassionate as Rosemary's."

" _You're_ the one who said she now has the freedom to do what she wants, to not be afraid of you anymore," Elena pointed out. "If she stays and gets killed, that's on _you_." Elijah's smile remained, but an edge crept into it, making her stifle a shiver.

"And your friends? Will you be able to bear the weight of their deaths, killed as they try to protect you?" Elijah said. "I should kill Damon Salvatore for having the audacity to think he could ever kill me. However, I am here, and together Jenna and I have settled on a negotiation that will keep everyone you love safe."

"You want to make a deal?"

"Why shouldn't I?" Elijah asked, gazing at her. "It's a far more civilised way of doing things, don't you agree? There's no reason for things to turn nasty."

"And how do I know you're telling the truth?" Elena asked. Make a _deal_ with him? And he'd only said he'd keep everyone she loved safe – nothing about _her_.

"Well, if I wasn't being truthful, Jenna would be dead and I'd be taking you to Klaus right now," Elijah said thoughtfully, and Jenna blinked very quickly as she lowered her coffee-cup, staring at him.

"And so what if I go along with this _deal_ , what do you want me to do?" Elena asked.

"Do? Specifically, I wish you to do nothing. Live your life; stop fighting," Elijah said, turning the pages of Jeremy's sketchbook. "Then, when the time is right, you and I shall draw Klaus out together and I shall make certain your friends and family remain unharmed."

"And then what?"

"And then I kill him."

"Just like that?" Elena said lightly, mocking his confidence.

"Just like that," Elijah smiled. "I'm a man of my word, Elena. I make a deal, I keep a deal." _And make sure the fine-print suits you_ , Elena thought. More assurances her friends and family would be safe, unharmed – nothing about _her_. This was exactly what she wanted, though, wasn't it? She'd been willing to give herself over to Klaus to protect everyone she loved – even _Damon_ – and Elijah was offering her assurance Klaus wouldn't hurt anyone, would be _dead_ before he could even try.

"Elena…" Jenna spoke up for the first time. The vervain bracelet Giulia had given her was clasped around her wrist; she was sure Elijah could smell the perfume she wore, because Elena sure could. The lotion she used on her hands, the vervain-water she sprayed on her hair each night – Jenna swore it helped her sleep better. "I've accepted Elijah's terms. I think they're very fair."

"You're _kidding_ me," Elena breathed, a little stunned. Last night Jenna had been raging that Elena needed to drop Stefan, the first step to removing all influences supernatural from her life. No supernatural entities, no attached supernatural drama.

"No, I'm not," Jenna said, with a stern bite Elena rarely heard.

"Well, I believe I shall take my leave and let you discuss matters in private," Elijah said politely, setting his coffee-cup down on the tray. "Thank you so much for your time, Jenna."

"Oh, yeah," Jenna blurted, thrown off by Elijah's politeness. "Er – you're welcome. Thank _you_." Elena frowned at her; she watched Jenna fuss as Elijah took his leave of them, buttoning his suit-jacket as he stepped out onto the porch into a light early-summer drizzle that was like a breath of fresh air in the stifling heat.

She knew Elijah could still hear them as Jenna closed the door carefully behind him, pointlessly locking the door. Elena rounded on her, appalled.

"Why would you invite him into the house?" she gasped. He could come back any time he wanted. She understood the irony of being terrified a vampire had unimpeded access to her, after she'd just been willing to hand herself over to one. But this was _her_ house – it was just different.

Jenna frowned at her, sighing. "Go upstairs and do your homework, Elena." There was no fight in her voice; she sounded exhausted. Elena grabbed her backpack and trudged upstairs. Jenna called up to her, "And, by teh way, you're bound inside the house 'til Caroline picks you up in the morning." Elena stared after her, long after jenna had returned to the kitchen, her cell-phone to her ear.

"Hey, Giulia, it's Jenna. Just give me a call back when you can," she heard Jenna say, and scoffed to herself. Elijah had been invited into their home, and Jenna was calling _Giulia_. Jenna felt Elena owed her an apology; she shouldn't have had to protect Elena by risking her own neck to _kill_ three vampires. Elena scoffed irritably to herself, shut her bedroom-door, grabbed her journal and threw herself on her bed, uncapping her pen. Jenna wanted her to do homework? She'd been so distracted lately she had to text bonnie for her assignments. Five minutes later, Jenna appeared, carrying a cup of coffee.

She took Elena's cell-phone, and tucked her journal under her arm.

"I said _homework_ ," Jenna said sternly, before going back downstairs, leaving the door ajar. Elena stared in disbelief, wondering how she'd known. She dragged herself to her desk, cracking open her Algebra II textbook, grimacing guiltily at the red C- on her latest quiz. It wasn't like she had a tone of free time to study, she thought fairly, ignoring the tiny voice in her head that said Giulia had graduated early to attend UV full-time in Richmond. She rubbed her face, flipped to the correct page and got to work, struggling the whole way through. She hadn't absorbed anything the last few weeks of class.

Jenna sat at the kitchen-table, powering through the next few handful of pages of her thesis. Ironically, she needed it ready for _Giulia_ to proofread. Giulia had offered, and Jenna had been inspired by her annotations; Meredith had chuckled, and told her Giulia had been instrumental in her passing her exams. And Meredith was the brightest doctor Mystic Falls General were privileged to have on their staff.

She needed to call Giulia for a couple of reasons – at the moment, Jenna's thesis, something she had been working toward for years, that would define her future, wasn't even the most stressful part of her life. In a fairer world, only her thesis would be keeping her up all night, working and worrying. Before Elena had come home from school, Elijah had filled her in on certain things that had Jenna very concerned. Not about Elena – _for Giulia_. She'd learned some things that, as a psych-grad working on her Masters, and Giulia's friend, she thought it would be a good idea to talk to her about.

The fact this strange, elegant guy knew things about Giulia they had no _clue_ about made her feel like she was an awful friend, made her worry what else they had all missed.

* * *

"Are you still not speaking to me?"

Giulia raised her face to Elijah's. Her expression said it all.

"I apologise if I have neglected to make you feel cherished and adored recently," she said politely. "At the moment I'm rather more concerned by my friend going through his first werewolf-transformation than your _feelings_."

Elijah sighed softly. "I…realise you may also be upset about other things," he said carefully.

"Upset? Yes, _upset_ is a good word… You're a _thousand_ years old. And you couldn't get more creative than _killing_ someone who could be such an asset, because you think they're a liability?" Giulia said coolly. She opened her mouth, thought better and closed it, breathing out through her nose, shaking her head slightly. She glanced from her laptop screen to Elijah, removing her fingers from the keys she had covered with Vincent Van Gogh's _Starry Night_ skin stickers. Quietly, she sighed and examined his face. "You _killed_ my _friend_."

Elijah paused, then said, "Technically, he staked himself."

Giulia's expression didn't change; suddenly, however, she looked ten times more vicious. "You're directly responsible for the death of my friend – a _good man_ – and now you're _sass-mouthin'_ me about it?" She snapped her laptop shut, reaching for her bag. She had been getting ready to leave for The Grill, where she was meeting up with Tyler and Caroline for dinner – Giulia was going to eat; they had decided it was probably best Tyler didn't eat directly before his transformation, with what his body would be going through. She paused at the front-door, Firenze peering at her curiously from his favourite spot, under the occasional table that always caught the sun first-thing in the morning. She said softly, "You disappointed me."

As she arranged everything in her car, she sighed and slung herself into the driver's seat, cranking the ignition. She hadn't slept well last-night – hadn't slept at all, really, too worried about Tyler, too upset by Elijah.

She was angrier at Elijah for disappointing her, for taking the _easy_ way out, than at Elena for putting herself and a lot of the rest of them at risk. The uncertainty of whether those loons had told anyone else about the doppelgänger hung over her, not too heavy, but it was concerning enough that she was glad she had asked Sheila to cloak Elena from locator charms after Rose and Trevor had kidnapped her.

She couldn't blame Elena for her stupidity; she was used to that. But she had…expected _more_ of Elijah. And that was what irritated her the most – Elijah had proven himself oddly… _human_. Flawed.

Slater was dead, and Giulia knew Elijah had killed him – correction, _compelled_ Slater to stake himself in the heart – because he was too clever and knew too much, he asked the right questions and had a lot of connections dangerous to Elijah's plans – and because it sent a message to Damon and Rose and Elena and anyone else digging into the sacrifice and the Originals. _Psychological_ _warfare_ … Killing Slater was the easiest, cleanest way of tidying up some complications. He had been clever enough to discover the doppelgänger's existence, but willing to divulge her whereabouts to those he was loyal to, and who he'd wanted to help – even if it meant kidnapping a teenage girl.

Slater had chosen his side – Rose's. She was now allied with Damon, who would help Stefan, who would do anything it took to protect Elena from the sacrifice ritual Elijah _wanted_ to happen so he could avenge his family. Honour demanded amends. Elijah's honour was compelling him to move against one brother to avenge the others.

Slater, Rose, Stefan, Damon, they were all obstacles to what Elijah wanted, and if they weren't careful they could all end up like Slater.

 _If_ Giulia hadn't also been playing the game.

Elena had suspected it, and Elijah knew it to be absolute truth, because he understood what others overlooked – that there was absolutely nothing Giulia was _not_ capable of: She _did_ have the moonstone.

While she had that, and while he refused to wean her off of vervain so he could compel its location from her – because that would ruin the _game_ – she had just enough leverage to keep them safe. If he caused any harm to them whatsoever, he'd _never_ get that talisman.

Because Giulia's contingencies would last longer than her death. It helped to be _human_ , to have access to a lawyer, and the friendship of a very talented witch who could be trusted to know the true details of their situation.

She could never think of everything, though: Tyler was proof of that. She had slipped up, hadn't thought Katherine would already have made her own contingencies in the time between Giulia flipping Mason and imprisoning her.

* * *

Tyler looked pale and jumpy when she met him at The Grill. Caroline had arrived early, gotten them Giulia's favourite booth and ordered them drinks – even if it might not be a good idea, Tyler would probably burn through the booze in no time at all with his metabolism the way it was now, and he looked like needed the triple-vodka.

"You didn't watch Mason's video again, did you?" Giulia asked quietly, sighing. Once was enough for her. The idea that Tyler would go through _that_ tonight… He had to get through it tonight, the first time, and then once every month… She and Caroline would be there for all of it, and their dread was tangible. Giulia did _not_ want to watch Tyler going through the transformation, couldn't bear the idea – but neither could she fathom the idea of letting him go through it all alone. Even though he was friends with Matt and was the star of the Varsity teams he was on, Tyler was…pretty isolated. He didn't exactly have the personality to draw or keep a lot of friends.

"Uh, yeah, I've had it on a loop," Tyler admitted edgily, and Giulia sighed, shaking her head.

"So – why didn't you tell me that Elijah is still alive?" Caroline asked, as Giulia sipped her drink.

"Because apparently Elena already has."

"Stefan called me in a panic last night because _apparently_ , Elena is grounded!" Caroline said, giving her an accusatory frown.

"So _that_ made the headlines, not Elena wanting to pull a suicide-mission off, manipulating Rose into an accessory after the fact?" Giulia raised her eyebrows. Typical.

"You told me Elena was on a suicide-mission, and to watch her at school, you didn't say anything about Elijah being immune to a banister being shoved through his heart!" Caroline blurted.

"Actually, I think it was a coat-stand," Giulia mused. Caroline gave her a dangerous look.

"Did you really make Elena just sit in the library for four hours?" Tyler chuckled suddenly.

"She needed a time-out," Giulia said lightly. "And I had work to do."

"Who _is_ Rose, by the way?" Caroline asked.

"One of the vampires who leveraged Elena for their freedom," Giulia said. "Half a millennium old – really pretty. Poor judgement when it comes to picking her friends – and making off with stolen tech." She perused the menu, deciding on what she wanted, and let it slap to the table. "Hey, you'll meet her, I was invited to a couple parties off-campus, I accepted on _our_ behalf. We can invite her; great buffet."

"That'll be fun," Caroline beamed; she liked to be included in some of the fun things Giulia got up to with her college friends, though she admitted she worried about Giulia taking part in some things.

"Tyler, you in?" Giulia asked.

"Just FYI, when Giulia says 'buffet' she means all-you-can-eat drunken snatch-eat-erase for me," Caroline clarified, "not dinner."

"Got it," Tyler nodded. "Sounds good to me."

"Excellent. Then I shall invite Rose if she reappears," Giulia said.

"I wouldn't," Tyler said plainly. "Five hundred years on the run from this guy and she was there when he was killed? He's gotta be pissed – now he's skulking around Richmond? And her friend is dead? I'd be long-gone." Caroline sighed, and they fell silent as their waiter arrived to take their order.

"So why would this Elijah guy _kill_ one of the vampires who came to take Elena?" Caroline asked.

"Probably because he didn't want her to be taken," Giulia muttered. "Look, Bonnie's here. Who's that she's with?"

"Some new guy," Caroline shrugged. She shot a thoughtful frown across the room, then leaned over the table. "She says he's a witch, she met his dad and he out and asked her whether she had family from Salem. She said she got a vibe, you know how she gets, and apparently his kid levitated salt to show her that he's a witch."

"And she doesn't find the timing suspicious at all?" Giulia smirked, eyeing the boy flirting with Bonnie. In her opinion he looked too old for high-school.

"She's pissed at her Grams," Caroline told her. "Miss Sheila's told her to stay away from Luka."

"Sheila thinks there's something _untoward_ in his interest in Bonnie?" Giulia chuckled, eyeing the steaming garlic-bread placed in front of them.

"Just because Elena was kidnapped doesn't mean we _all_ worry about stranger-danger," Caroline said. "What, we're all gonna wear chastity-belts for the rest of our lives because they might be after Elena?"

"If Miss Sheila is telling Bonnie to give that kid a wide berth, I'd listen," Giulia said firmly. A young witch who had homed in on Bonnie? Elijah's, definitely. Firstly, Elijah needed a witch to perform the sacrifice; and him being a young, relatively attractive male gave him an in with single, desperate-for-affection Bonnie. Not that Giulia didn't have her flaws, but it wasn't a surprise Bonnie had been pinpointed as the easiest target. " _Sheila's_ instincts, I trust. She isn't flattered by every carni who flashes her a pretty smile. Bonnie does leave herself open to this kind of thing – target of opportunity. Happened with – whatshisname? That bartender Matt used to know? Ben?"

" _You're_ single," Caroline pointed out.

"Yeah, but she's scary," Tyler teased. Giulia blinked at him. _Scary_? Caroline's expression was thoughtful as Tyler's eyes twinkled. If he could laugh, _tonight_ , despite what they all knew was coming, she didn't mind that it was at her expense.

"I'm not scary. Am I scary?" she asked Caroline, who grimaced.

"Uh – yeah. I'm a _vampire_ and I wouldn't piss you off."

"That's because you know me."

"Yeah, but you've got this aura right now that's really like…ferocious."

"It's not a bad thing, you're just intense," Tyler shrugged. "If I didn't know you, I'd be terrified to talk to you, let alone ask you on a date."

"Well, that's ridiculous, I love to go out on dates, I get asked all the time," Giulia said, frowning, but her heart sank. She put on a good show of being the unshakeable badass everyone thought she was, and usually it was effortless, because she, well, _was_. But she was still seventeen, and she no longer had that steadying influence from her dad to settle her when she had been ruffled up the wrong way. Nobody else knew her the way her dad had.

Was this really what people thought of her? She knew people thought she was an emotionless, callous bitch, but – _scary_? She didn't want to seem unapproachable. She'd had a lot going on recently, and perhaps she needed to learn to handle things differently – but she was doing her _best_ , damn it, nobody else was taking on as much as she was… Admittedly, she piled it on herself, so she couldn't blame anyone else – she just knew she was too clever, and knew too much to just sit back and watch things unfold. Though they weren't really speaking, and she had little to no interest in maintaining her friendships with Elena and Bonnie, she was still invested in their wellbeing. She had grown up with those girls; they were in nearly every photograph from any major event during her childhood. That bond of loyalty just didn't break overnight. Just because she had outgrown them didn't change the fact she would always do what she could to help, to protect them – whether it was from playground bullies, Mean Girls or supernatural asswipes, it was the same. She was too clever to sit by when she could actively make a difference to a devastating outcome.

"It's okay," Caroline assured her. "I mean, you're going through a lot. And at least people know you won't let them get away with anything." Giulia shrugged, consuming her garlic-bread thoughtfully. When Caroline went to refresh her lipgloss, Tyler gently punted her leg under the table.

"Hey…you know we didn't mean to upset you," he said.

"I'm not upset."

"Yeah, you are," Tyler said, giving her a look. "You think I can't tell when someone's hurt your feelings? I was the _best_ at making you look like that. You let me treat you like crap."

"Maybe I thought you'd change," Giulia said pointedly, and Tyler sighed, observing the restaurant. Everything looked just the same as it always did – _normal_. But this devastating and life-altering thing was going to happen tonight.

"Hey…are you sure it's okay for me to stay at your place tonight?" Tyler asked. "Caroline said Damon's pretty unfriendly."

"He's changeable," Giulia said lightly. She shrugged. "The Boarding House is actually perfect. We have _huge_ tubs and beds, an enormous liquor cellar, and absolutely no parental supervision. Unless you want to explain to your mom why you have me and Caroline sleeping in your room."

"She'd think we're getting back together," Tyler said, smirking. Giulia grimaced, and he chuckled. "Why's the tub important?"

"Ice," Giulia said, glancing at him. She had filled the deep chest-freezer in the Boarding House with bags of ice, intending to run an ice-bath for Tyler as soon as they could get him to there after his transformation; the steam shower was also going to be handy, though she wouldn't dare invite him to use Damon's. Even her dad had never used that room.

"You two've really thought of it all, haven't you?" Tyler frowned thoughtfully. Giulia had rarely seen him so introverted. He was a kid who _reacted_ , he didn't think things over. Or, he had been.

"Well…it's what we do. Did you get the chains?" Giulia asked.

"Yeah, in my bag," Tyler said, nudging his gym-bag, which rattled noticeably.

"And you told your mom you wouldn't be home tonight?"

"Yeah. She knows I'll be with the two of you," Tyler said. "Caroline said her mom will cover for us. Homework; you helped me with my math. You and Caroline shared her room, I was on the sofa-bed." Giulia nodded. Telling Liz was one step closer to telling Carol. Liz _needed_ to be kept in the loop; Damon had finally filled her in on how and why Sarah had died at the masquerade party. Liz appreciated the kids not being implicated, but Giulia was right; she would never have gone along with tampering with a crime-scene.

"I should probably actually do some of your Geometry homework for you so it looks like you got smarter through proximity," Giulia mused. Tyler rolled his eyes; he wasn't mathematically, scientifically-minded. He was better with words, could quote movies and TV-shows he'd enjoyed correctly months later after one viewing, he was artistic. But he'd had no support for that aspect of his personality, had learned to just hide his enjoyment of it, and struggled with the rest, too embarrassed to ask for help.

"Make sure you get at least a half-dozen problems really wrong," Tyler said, and Giulia chuckled as Caroline bounced back toward them.

"I settled the bill," she declared with a smile. "Are you ready?"

Tyler sighed heavily, clenching his jaw. "Let's do this."

* * *

 **A.N.** : Keep reading…


	27. Wolf-Moon

**A.N.** : A bit more action for _22cjwolf22_. I did promise another dedication!

* * *

 **Dangerous Beauty**

 _27_

 _Wolf-Moon_

* * *

They took Caroline's car, Giulia's Beetle not exactly an all-terrain vehicle. Giulia transferred an icebox into the trunk with a change of clothes, a Thermos and a First Aid kit – she and Caroline had debated, Giulia had consulted with Meredith, and they thought it might as well just be best to have it on them, along with a handful of protein-bars and Gatorade for immediate hydration and nutrition – Meredith agreed with Giulia that Tyler would be burning through a _lot_ of calories. To say Meredith was curious about Tyler's transformation was a _mild_ understatement.

"So I looked it up online, and we have until 12:18 a.m. until the moon is at its fullest," Caroline said, slinging the bag of chains over her shoulder as if it were a pillow, leaving Tyler staring as Giulia reached into the trunk. "From Mason's video I worked out that's like your peak during the transformation, if you can get past then, then you can get through it all."

"You watched the video again? What is your _macabre_ fascination with this?" Giulia asked, frowning in confusion at Tyler and Caroline. She understood the desire to research from every angle – but that video was… _intimate_. It tried to show something that most people would never experience in their lives, could never be replicated, it was a harrowing thing to watch and even the times when Mason had been off-screen, her spine had tingled unpleasantly, dread rising like nausea.

"You're the one who says it's better to always be over-prepared," Caroline pointed out. Giulia frowned.

"That's _you_ ," Giulia called after her. Usually Caroline was referring to extra hair-pins and bug-spray and discreet compact tampons in their purses. Caroline was a _nagger_ for it, especially during cheer events. If anyone's bows went flying she went full-on Mean Girl. Tyler shook his head in wonder as Caroline's bright curls bounced in the sunlight dappling through the trees, skipping along toward the Lockwood cellar. He frowned and turned to the trunk.

"Did you seriously bring a First Aid kit?" he asked, astounded.

"Purely precautionary," Giulia assured him. She and Caroline had tried to cover all bases, thinking of everything. They'd get through tonight, and Giulia had things in the works. Sarah's death had been an accident, but Sheila…she was old-school about her magic, and she believed that even if it had been an accident, a tragic accident…Tyler's first transformation was a sort of amends for Sarah's death.

But that didn't mean Sheila wanted a werewolf running around Mystic Falls every month, wreaking all sorts of havoc.

For a half-hour, they helped Tyler set up the cellar.

"Tell me you brought the instruction manual," Caroline scoffed, trying to make light of the situation; even Giulia could smell the tension in the air.

"Tell me you brought the wolfsbane," Tyler replied.

"That was all Giulia."

"I brought it," Giulia muttered, digging into her backpack. The stem of wolfsbane with its delicate yellowish-green flowers had been freshly-cut from her little supernatural garden. And she had more. She delicately pulled the stem out of a Ziploc baggie, and Tyler frowned in consternation and doubt, reaching out to touch the flowers. His fingers hissed, and he jerked his hand away, fingers sizzling where the plant had burnt him, searing away skin.

"Guess I'm growing the right stuff," Giulia said darkly. Tyler hissed, grunting in pain, and shook his fingers out; in seconds, the skin had healed, and he looked bewildered. This was brand-new to him. It wasn't like Giulia, with Stefan and Damon coming back to town; she'd known the secret all her life. Mere days ago Tyler had learned about this strange world he had now been thrown into.

"I got water-bottles in my bag," Tyler said quietly. "We can mix it in there."

"Okay," Caroline sighed softly, and Giulia passed her the cutting as she rummaged around in Tyler's duffel.

"Guy at the hardware store said this setup was rated up to five-thousand pounds," Tyler said, tugging at one of the chains.

"Is that more than a werewolf can pull?" Caroline asked.

"I have no idea." Tyler stood up to jerk on some of the chains, testing the bolts driven deep into the cavern walls.

"Hey, Tyler…" Caroline said, after screwing the cap on his sports-bottle. "How you doing?"

"Still human," Tyler said offhandedly. Giulia glanced from Caroline to Tyler. Aside from the night she had had to tell Tyler everything, the night of the masquerade, the night Sarah had died, this was the longest Giulia had spent with Tyler in a long time. The brush-off comment he'd just given Caroline was exactly how Giulia remembered Tyler answering any question she posed to him about his _feelings_ – he'd brush them off, hide things away. He had never been a guy who could come out and say what was thrashing around in his head, driving him crazy. The fact that he had allowed them here, the both of them, _tonight_ , on a night when he would have to go through the worst experience he would ever go through in his life… That was _huge_.

Not that he'd had any choice.

For her own reasons, Caroline didn't want Tyler to be alone during his transformation. Giulia hated watching that video of Mason, she hadn't…hadn't been able to desensitise herself to the fact that it was _Mason_ – that this would be happening to Tyler. It was real. It was horrific and life-shattering and she could study slavery and medieval torture methods without batting an eye – but people she knew, her _friends_ going through excruciating torment? She didn't _want_ to see Tyler going through what Mason had – but at the same time…this was Tyler. One of her oldest friends, and the first boy she had ever loved. And she had loved him, for all her relationship with Elijah showed her just how badly she'd let Tyler treat her.

She couldn't stand the idea of Tyler going through so much hurt alone – the way she'd been the only one who knew his dad smacked him around: this was theirs, too. Only, Caroline was part of it now. Because she'd gone through something just as jarring, and she wanted to help make sure Tyler came through the other side.

Giulia blinked as Tyler took his t-shirt off, expression unchanged. Now Tyler was a guy who spent too much time at the gym – he was young, cut muscle, not a mark on him. And she snickered as Caroline blushed, curls bouncing as she whirled around, hand up to her eyes, blurting, "Oh, my god! You're not gonna get naked, are you?" Giulia stuck her tongue between her teeth, eyes glittering as Tyler caught her eye, blushing a little bit; she tweaked an eyebrow up challengingly, but he sent an embarrassed glance at Caroline's back.

"It's elastic," he explained, a little defensively. "I mean, what should I wear? I don't think it's like the Hulk where I get to keep my pants."

"Well, don't get shy on our account," Giulia said, sighing contentedly as she watched Tyler. "I've already seen all the merchandise." Tyler gave her a look, and she raised her hands up defensively. "Just trying to relieve some of the tension."

"You dumped my sorry ass, remember; you don't get to see my goods anymore," Tyler reminded her.

"I dumped your sorry ass because you were showing every girl in town the inventory!"

* * *

A few hours later, and they were all bored. Tyler's boredom was tinged with anxiousness so palpable Giulia could see it eking from his pores; Caroline sat patiently, hands folded on her knees, not even fidgeting. The vampire's nature revealing itself, utterly still, while Tyler paced to a constant rattle of chains. He'd never been patient; and knowing what was going to start happening, he had to be driving himself crazy. Giulia had taken the opportunity to have a nap: seducing Elijah only to leave him royally unsatisfied took it out of her. The tables had turned; she could sort herself out before he'd had the chance to climax, and she had been enjoying the hate-sex. Rather, the disappointment-sex. She didn't _hate_ Elijah for what he'd done to Slater, she just wished he hadn't been so cliché, so… _lazy_. So, in retaliation, she rode Elijah like a lazy-horse and did things to him that took his breath away, made him forget himself and swear in ancient Norse, he'd grin and _play_ and only make her fall deeper in love with him – before she'd finish herself off, climb off him and saunter away, leaving him – and it was her favourite word of the moment, _discombobulated_.

Serves him right. This was a high-stakes game; there was no taking the easy way out. He'd cheated.

She yawned, sitting up and shifting positions; her left butt-cheek had fallen asleep. And she yawned again, a long, exhausted yawn that left her wiping bleary eyes, staring glumly at Tyler.

"Well, this is very dull," she sighed miserably. She wasn't looking forward to Tyler starting to turn into a wolf, but she felt like the Doctor waiting for the alien attack with Vincent and Amy. And she'd already finished the 789-piece star puzzle she had been given for Christmas – and gone through the Sudoku book she'd found in Caroline's bag.

"What time is it?" Tyler asked.

"Almost ten," Caroline said, making Giulia squint as her iPhone screen shone brightly in the gloomy cellar.

"Only a couple hours," Tyler muttered to himself, staring unseeingly at the wall. "Mason's journal said the first transformation can happen before the moon hits its apex."

"Well, think of it like going to your gynaecologist. The sooner you book the appointment, the sooner it's over and done with," Giulia said, and Caroline turned raised eyebrows on her. Giulia shrugged. There was nothing more undignified than visiting the gynaecologist. She blinked, remembering that Tyler had been directly responsible for her last visit, the day she'd been checked out for any STDs. She frowned at him in the dark. Tonight was a night of penance for him, alright.

"Does it say in there how long you'll actually be a wolf?" Caroline asked quietly. "I mean, Mason's video, when he knocked the camera over, you couldn't see anything for ages."

"He said a few hours," Tyler said, looking more nervous than he had before. "Maybe more. Maybe less."

"You'll get through it," Giulia said quietly. That was what they all had to remember; that Tyler would survive whatever he was going to have to go through. She watched him closely, taking in the way his legs shook, the way he clenched his hands every now and then, the way sweat had broken out all over his chest, his face, his back, panting gently though it was a relatively cool night, the gentlest they'd had in a while since the heat-wave started, so cool the edge to the air had stopped her from falling into a real deep sleep. Tyler walked over to them, and tripped about two foot from where she and Caroline were perched on the old steps. He grunted, grabbing the chains and jerking them in annoyance, before turning scared, dilated eyes to his sports-bottle. He refused their help, he had to do it himself, reaching for the bottle, shaking out his limbs in anxiousness, almost like a pre-game ritual, as he wandered back across the cellar.

"Are you sure –? Are you _sure_ you wanna do that?" Caroline asked anxiously.

Tyler sighed heavily, nodding. "Yeah. Mason wrote it will diminish my strength so I can't break free." Caroline stood, wringing her hands, and Giulia watched, grimacing compassionately as Tyler took a deep breath and tilted the bottle to his lips. For a few seconds, he managed to do it – then he pitched forward, grabbing his stomach and spewing the light-yellow liquid across the cavern floor, retching. As Caroline darted forward, Giulia scrambled to her feet, feeling utterly helpless. She and Caroline exchanged a grim look as they knelt by Tyler, on his hands and knees, shuddering and retching, panting and agitated.

"Don't! Don't!" he kept shouting. "Just don't!"

"Shh, shh," Caroline said soothingly, glancing at Giulia as she patted Tyler's shoulder gently. He seemed to be calming down again, his features regretful as he lifted his face, staring at Caroline.

"I'm sorry," he said softly. Giulia would happily admit her jaw almost hit the floor at that point; she'd never heard Tyler _apologise_. He caught her eye; even in the dark she could tell his pupils were dilated with fear. She leaned forward, resting her forehead against his, just calm and quiet, closing her eyes. This was the way they used to be, when he was anxious and humiliated and hurt by his dad hitting him – he'd get quiet, allow her to curl up with him, he'd be physically affectionate, letting her in. She was by no means perfect and with everyone but Caroline and Elijah she was pretty standoffish, physically – but Tyler was just not used to being touched. Carol wasn't a hugger, and his dad used to hit him. Giulia had the benefit of a dad she used to cuddle up with in the library, or watching TV and slumber-parties with the girls.

She opened her eyes, sighed softly, and sat back as Caroline gently stroked Tyler's temple, his dark hair beaded with sweat.

They were all waiting, and she hated it.

For a long time they had been waiting, nothing at all had been happening. Then, all of a sudden, everything seemed to start happening all at once. Tyler's breathing, once sharp and short bursts, anxious and agitated, waiting, turned into full pants, his entire body shuddering with them as he remained on his hands and knees, his fingers curled into fists so tight, Giulia spotted blood dripping onto the dusty floor.

More agitated, and growing more senseless, ignoring or simply not hearing Caroline as she tried to coax him, Tyler rose up onto his knees, panting and grunting as he tugged at the chains he had wrapped around his neck.

"I'm burning up!" Tyler blurted, and Giulia had never heard his voice thicker with emotion. "It burns!" He gave a brutal yank on the chains, choking and whimpering a little.

"I know. You just have to breathe through this, okay?" Caroline coached him.

"I'll try!" Tyler choked tearfully.

"Sun rises at 5:45 in the morning, Tyler, you only have to go this for a few hours," Giulia told him gently.

"A few hours!" Tyler laughed, tears of pain spattering the floor with those droplets of blood that had made Caroline turn wide, concerned eyes on Giulia, who'd shaken her head.

"A few hours, and then normal," Giulia promised him, her voice calm and sincere. Caroline watched her best-friend. She was a pretty good gauge of Giulia's moods, how she was handling certain situations; a lot of emotional stuff put her on edge, and she'd been worried that Giulia wasn't…wasn't _concerned_ by this. She hadn't been interested in watching Mason's video – Caroline knew she'd already seen it, but this was _Giulia_ , there wasn't _anything_ she couldn't handle! But Caroline knew how much this was affecting Giulia by how emotionless she seemed. In the glow of the single lantern Caroline had found in the garage, Giulia's exquisite features were marble-like in their perfection, no emotion ruining the sharp planes and delicate curves, sending her eyelashes like shards of charcoal across her cheekbones, her eyes glowing an eerie silver in the lamplight. She'd never looked prettier, or more eerie. And that was how Caroline knew that no matter how difficult this was for her, Giulia was struggling to watch Tyler, helpless.

She and Giulia were so different in a lot of ways, but in one way they had always been bonded: they both _cared_. They showed it differently, and there was less Giulia was willing to put up with that Caroline would, for the sake of argument and friendships, turn the other cheek to, but ultimately they both cared about their friends. Giulia had killed two vampires the other night to protect Elena, whom she wasn't even getting along with right now; and they were both here. For Tyler. Even though he had slept around behind Giulia's back when they were dating, and he was pretty much the biggest douche in town besides Duke, who was away at school half the time.

"Hey," Giulia whispered coaxingly, even reaching out to cup Tyler's chin with her elegant fingers, catching his eye and refusing to let him drop eye-contact. "This first time, and then I _promise_ , Tyler, you don't have to do it again." Tearful, shuddering all over, Tyler eventually nodded. "Tell me one good thing."

"A good thing?" Tyler panted, looking bewildered. He panted several times, before blurting, "The smells. I can smell everything."

"Like what?"

"Like – flowers. Everywhere. The earth, when it's warm, I can smell it; it's _alive_. I can tell there's grapefruit and magnolia in Caroline's perfume – I can smell _you_ ," Tyler panted, sweat dripping into his eyes; he swatted it away irritably. He panted, and Giulia watched him, curious, as he raised his hand to his head, "I smell you and I keep…thinking about things. When we were together." His voice ended on a squeak, his body writhing. Panting, he turned to Caroline, glancing back at Giulia but focusing on Caroline when he said, "You should go."

If Tyler accidentally mauled Giulia, Caroline could heal her. They all knew that. They all were aware that a werewolf-bite supposedly killed vampires, and none of them were willing to test the theory. But Caroline glanced at Giulia, who shook her head ever so slightly; they weren't going anywhere.

"Mm-mm," she shook her head.

" _You_ – _should_ – _leave_ ," Tyler forced out, panting heavily.

"Not yet," Caroline said gently.

Tyler's pants gave way to grunts, shouts, his body curling into itself, breathless with pain.

"Tyler. Tyler?" Caroline blurted, eyes widening. "Tyler!"

In an instant, Tyler's right arm had broken, flung back at an unnatural angle with a sound like a shotgun blast. It stole the breath from Giulia's lungs, making her go cold, and Caroline smothered a panicky gasp, backing up a pace. Tyler's screams echoed on the still air, Caroline could taste the salt of his tears, and Giulia fumbled her way to Caroline, heart pounding a mile a minute, body shivering with cold sweat, wild-eyed as she stared at Tyler, the sound of more breaking bones bringing up a wave of nausea and a burning sensation behind her eyes and at the back of her throat, filled with horror as Tyler's body contorted against his will. The sound of his screams, turning into cries of despair, would haunt her dreams.

"It hurts!" Tyler cried, and Giulia's eyes burned. " _It hurts_!" He was sobbing; they were powerless. All she could think about was Tyler – and Sarah, and how glad she was that she had had Elijah compel Katherine. Desiccating in a tomb seemed little punishment in comparison to this. As Tyler sobbed and more bones snapped, taking them unawares, she shivered and swiped at her cheeks, something stinging them.

She didn't dare relax, let her guard down, even when Tyler's breathing slowed, his body relaxing, and he seemed to be dozing on the floor, still chained, the sweat dried, unnatural bruising disappearing too quickly. The transformation was supposed to be a punishment, but Giulia thought who or whatever was responsible for the werewolf race being created was a sadist. Why snap his arms and collarbones now if it would be hours before he transformed, giving his bones time to heal with unnatural speed? _Punishment_ , a little voice whispered.

Glancing at Giulia, Caroline crept closer. She had the superhuman reflexes, and she had pinned Giulia to the wall earlier and forbidden Giulia to put herself in harm's way – Damon telling her about the café being blown up with Giulia in it had really brought out the protectiveness in Caroline.

"I wanna help, but I don't know what to do," Caroline said gently.

"There is nothing you can do," Tyler panted, his voice sluggish. Giulia wandered forward, watching as Tyler pushed himself to his knees.

A _crunch_ and a popping snap like a sapling tree snapping in half exploded around the cellar, filling her with a dread that made her stomach evaporate, and adrenaline that made her hands tremble, staring, as Tyler's back contorted unnaturally, bones visibly breaking and shifting beneath his skin, marbled with bruises, a canvas of fuchsias, dark-purples, angry mottled reds and unhealthy greens and yellows.

"Oh, my god!" Caroline cried, hand over her mouth as Tyler screamed in pain, writhing. "Tyler!"

"Get out." Tyler panted. Caroline darted forward; Giulia gave a shuddering breath and followed. Caroline didn't even think Giulia realised she was crying.

"No," Caroline said tearfully.

"Get out," Tyler barked. "I don't wanna hurt you!"

"No! No. Okay," Caroline blurted, and they both crowded Tyler, holding onto him, physically holding him together while his body tried to tear itself apart. Giulia held his hand, crouched low to the ground, her nail-polish drawing Caroline's eye as it glinted in the lamplight, stroking her thumb against the back of Tyler's hand. Tyler panted, groaning in pain, lifting his head, panting, eyes unseeing, but he blinked a few times, focused on Giulia's tearstained face.

The only other time Caroline had seen Giulia cry was…was the night she realised Caroline had been turned into a vampire – had realised Caroline had _died_.

People could say what they wanted about who they thought Giulia was: _This_ was her.

He might've fallen asleep. Fingers intertwined with Giulia's, his head resting on their hands, Caroline cuddling him from behind, he was surrounded by them. Their _love_ , their perfume. Giulia's warmth, feeling guilty for Giulia's wince when he gripped her hand as another spasm racked his body, unable to tear his hands away from her and thankful she would never jerk her hands away from him, the crispness of Caroline's scent, her natural chill wafting over his sweaty body like a caress, murmuring in his ear as emotion choked Giulia to silence. He'd never seen her cry before. Even when he'd been such a jerk to her any normal teenage-girl would be reduced to tears – from anger and frustration, if not hurt feelings. They were both here. For him. The two of them, doing something he'd never ask anyone to do for him, never dare ask anyone to witness, but they were here. Resolutely, stubbornly, _here_. For him.

"Leave," Tyler mumbled through his pants, as he writhed and grunted, sweat covering him again. With visible effort, he disentangled his fingers from Giulia's, curling his fists to his chest.

"No."

"Just go. Please!" Tyler choked.

"No, not yet," Caroline said soothingly.

"Just go!"

"I can't," Caroline murmured.

"We're staying here, Tyler," Giulia whispered, leaning down to smooth his hair away and kiss his temple.

"We're not going anywhere," Caroline assured him.

Tyler's back snapping for the second time made him scream, Caroline jerking away in shock, and Giulia scrambled to her feet as Tyler panted, his body writhing, things snapping, and she watched in horror as his teeth, bared in an agonised grimace, sharpened, lengthening, his eyes glowing that same brilliant amber they had the night Sarah had died. Giulia glanced at Caroline: before Tyler had snapped his new fangs, a growling bark echoing off the stone, inherently an angry sound, Caroline had grabbed Giulia's hand and whisked them out of reach.

Giulia grabbed the door, slamming it shut behind her; Tyler launched himself at the bars, as Caroline fumbled to wrap chains around the door and the rusted old frame.

Tyler was gone, or on his way out: in his place was an animalistic creature more wolf than man in behaviour, on his hands and toes, movements sharp and aggressive, eyes glowing in the dark, angered by the chains binding him, and even Tyler's voice was becoming more animal than human, a low, consistent growl instead of the pants she had become used to.

Jarred by the sudden change in Tyler, Giulia watched on in horror, unable to move despite Caroline's urging, nagging, ordering her to leave the cellar while she held onto the chains, as Tyler thrashed around, suddenly too fast, too strong – he snapped the chains like they were yard-long _Red_ _Rope_ liquorice not steel. His screams became growls, howling, fangs sharp and lethal in the lamplight, eyes amber, no sign of Tyler behind them at all, just… _anger_. The chains rattled, Tyler freed himself, Giulia couldn't move, and they watched on, hearts shattering, tears falling freely, as Tyler reared, his scream turning into a growl, a crescendo of snapping bones accompanying the most horrifying… _shift_ – Tyler's body looked like it was battling an earthquake, bones snapping with brutal clarity, a gruesome reforming of his anatomy into something she didn't recognise, fur growing to cover the new canine form, eyes glowing amber in the darkness, flashing in the lamplight.

A wolf launched itself at them, dark-furred and feral.

A hand appeared, blocking the brutal hit of the werewolf dead set on tearing them to ribbons, ramming himself against the bars. She recognised the voice, too appalled by what she was watching to move. Elijah.

"Go. I will come for you when it is safe to return," he said, and someone touched her arm.

Whisked her away so suddenly, she couldn't blink before she stood in the moonlight-dappled forest, the sun-baked scent of the woods wafting up where her shoes crushed fallen leaves and needles.

* * *

She didn't realise until then that her entire body was shaking. That her cheeks itched from her hot tears. That the coffee she had drunk earlier wasn't going to stay where it was. She darted to a tree-trunk and vomited. Coughing, she started, whipping around and darted away as someone patted her on the back. Caroline. White-faced, stricken, sobbing, as tear-stained as she felt.

It took a while for her heartbeat to gentle. She washed away the taste of vomit with the contents of her hipflask, alternating hits from it with Caroline, who kept glancing over her shoulder at the entrance to the cellar.

Hearing it without seeing what was going on was worse than being in there, Giulia decided. And it seemed to go on for hours – _did_. The echoing growls, the marrow-melting barks that made them jump each time, afraid an amber-eyed wolf would leap from the cellar-steps, they couldn't relax, couldn't stop shivering. It wasn't cold, like the cellar was cool, it was _warm_ and Giulia was sweating, anxious and deeply upset. There was no unseeing what she had just witnessed, Tyler could never un-experience what he was going through. How did he come back from this?

How had Mason bounced back, chill and downing shots with Jenna, chuckling, twinkly-eyed and incredibly hot? _How_?

Women went through childbirth all the time, Giulia reminded herself. Didn't they go through the same thing, sort of? Most mothers would say it was all worth it; Giulia's own wouldn't. Couldn't, because of her. There was a hollow senselessness to what Tyler and Mason went through that wasn't dissimilar to what Giulia felt about her mother going through childbirth for the sake of her – only to be killed in the effort.

It wasn't called a curse for no reason.

She had become aware, for a little while now, that Caroline was _listening_. She was still, staring with an intent frown into the dark, her fair curls glinting in the moonlight.

Giulia swallowed the lump in her throat, and her voice was hoarse when she asked, "What's going on in there?"

"That guy… He's talking to Tyler," Caroline whispered, her voice full of something like wonder. "Just…talking."

"What's he saying?"

"I don't know," Caroline said softly, tilting her head to one side, listening. "He's…speaking a foreign language… Giulia, who is he?"

"Elijah." Caroline's eyes bugged out, her lips parted and Giulia caught her hand before she could zoom into the cellar. "He's not hurting Tyler."

" _Elijah's_ in there with Tyler?" Caroline blurted. "What – what – why's he in there?" Giulia gazed at the steps into the cellar. "You don't think – he wouldn't _kill_ Tyler, would he? You and Miss Sheila made sure he couldn't get out!"

Her voice was heartbroken when she said, "He doesn't want to leave Tyler to go through this on his own."

Because Elijah had killed Slater, and he knew how important it was for Giulia to be there for Tyler through his first transformation. He also knew how dangerous it was for humans to be around transforming werewolves, and how devastated Giulia would be if anything happened to Caroline. Originals could not die from a werewolf-bite. And Elijah was just that arrogant enough to believe he could avoid being bitten. If Elijah was speaking his native ancient Norse to Tyler, Giulia was sure he'd be gentled; when he spoke it to her, starting to teach her the language, she'd do anything he asked, entranced by the rhythm and beauty of the language, and his rich, gentle voice.

Tonight was Tyler's penance for killing Sarah: Giulia would learn it was Elijah's, for hurting her feelings.

"Why would Elijah want to help Tyler?" Caroline asked softly, sniffling a little. "Damon killed him; he blew up a café with you in it."

"A man like Elijah does what he wants," Giulia said quietly, "for his own reasons." She remembered Elijah saying the same thing about his own mother once. She gave a little shrug. She meandered over to a fallen tree-trunk, settling herself down on it with a sigh, realising how exhausted she was, her legs aching, trembling as she sat. She reflected on her own aches and pains and wondered how Tyler would even be able to _move_ when he finally transformed back into a man.

She fell asleep where she sat, so tired, emotionally drained, head in her hands, mouth open, oblivious to everything around her. She started into a brutal wakefulness, peeking blearily through the dark, shivering at Caroline's sudden nearness; she had vamp- _zhoomed_ to Giulia's side, watching Elijah warily as he climbed the cellar steps buttoning his suit-jacket ever so calmly. The moonlight gleamed off his chestnut hair, and his expression was neutral as he strolled toward them.

"Your friend has resumed his usual form," he said calmly, and his eyes lingered for a moment on Giulia's tearstained face. "He will need you."

Caroline didn't linger; she took Giulia's hand and they were picking their way through the pitch-dark cellar a second later. Giulia tripped over the lantern, squawking in the dark and landing heavily and awkwardly on her bruised right side, her ribs protesting; she clicked the lantern on, and scrambled over the ground to get to Tyler, lying naked and covered in sweat and quickly-fading bruises, curled in the foetal position and crying silently. Caroline grabbed the blanket they had been perched on earlier, draping it over Tyler's waist.

"You're okay!" Caroline cooed. "You're okay. You made it. You didn't hurt anyone. You're okay."

"No, I'm not," Tyler whispered, and burst into tears.

* * *

 **A.N.** : If you didn't feel sorry for Tyler in this episode, there is something really wrong with you!


	28. Fess Up

**A.N.** : Thank you so much for all the fantastic reviews! I think a few of you had issues with the site, I hope you all got to read the updates.

* * *

 **Dangerous Beauty**

 _28_

' _Fess Up_

* * *

Tyler stayed that way for a long time, cuddled by Caroline, crying into Giulia's chest when they managed to get him sat upright, leaning heavily against her. Caroline being the fastest of them, Giulia sent her ahead to the Boarding House to prepare an ice-bath for Tyler, and ensure the shower was scalding. That left Giulia to get some clothes on Tyler and get him to the car. They managed gym-shorts and flip-flops; he hobbled, supported by Giulia, to the car, where she produced and he guzzled down several Gatorades and and power-bars, falling into a doze as Giulia drove them to the Boarding House, lit up like the Moulin Rouge, Damon's music blasting in the great hall. Giulia got a fleeting glimpse of Damon, dancing with his bourbon, and Rose's pretty face, illuminated by the lamplight as she glanced over a bare shoulder.

"We're playing strip-Truth or Dare!" Damon called, his open shirt billowing. "Join us!"

"Not tonight," Giulia called back, guiding Tyler to her room. In all the time they'd been friends, all the time they'd been dating, Giulia's house had creeped Tyler out. Her bedroom was a no-boys-allowed zone, and if Tyler hadn't stayed away by his own choice, Giulia's dad's gun collection would've kept him away.

"So, I met Rose," Caroline announced by way of greeting, glancing over her shoulder as she emptied the last bag of ice into the bathtub.

"Before or after she lost her bra?" Giulia grunted, depositing Tyler on the edge of the tub.

"After," Caroline said breezily, giving Giulia an accusatory look.

"Why are you looking at me like that?!" Giulia blurted. "I can't control Damon's libido. And he's getting bored – it's good he's made a new little friend."

"So, I guess she's back," Caroline sighed. She'd heard Rose's part in Elena's kidnapping and for that, Rose's presence was a sore spot, but it wasn't in Caroline's nature to be unkind. "Is she staying here?"

"Neither Stefan nor Damon have forcibly removed her – _yet_ ," Giulia shrugged unconcernedly. If Rose was back and Damon was playing naked drinking-games with her, she didn't have anything to concern herself with except helping lower Tyler into the ice-bath. He was her priority, and Caroline understood that Giulia didn't _care_ about Damon and Rose to gossip and Damon-bash. The only thing she did think was that with Rose's reappearance came Slater's computer-system.

Caroline left the room while Tyler climbed into teh tub; Giulia helped him, then went to get ready for bed herself. Before long, they heard the shower hissing, and a knock on the door. Giulia blinked at Rose, standing in the doorway in her pyjamas and silky robe.

"Is your friend alright?" Rose asked, genuine concern on her face.

"Not really," Giulia said quietly, as Caroline drifted over, her hair already in pigtails for bed. Rose smiled warmly at her.

"Sorry about earlier."

"That's okay," Caroline sighed tiredly, stifling a yawn. "Just don't expect me to reciprocate."

Rose chuckled softly. "I just wanted to check you have everything you need."

"We're good," Giulia said, barely able to keep her eyes open. "Enjoy the party."

Tyler shuffled into the room in a haze of steam, half-asleep. The bruises had disappeared, and the only hint of what he'd just been through was the look in Tyler's eyes. Literally a lost puppy; he didn't seem to know what to do with himself. Caroline was already tucked up in bed; it didn't take any convincing to get Tyler in next to her, and Giulia killed the lights before cuddling up to her new personal space-heater, so different from Elijah's refreshing coolness. Finally, _finally_ , they all started to relax. Tyler's warmth was soothing, and Giulia sighed, cuddling up. She couldn't resist, though, smirking to herself, and said, "Aren't _you_ a lucky boy?!"

"Giulia!" Caroline blurted, and Tyler's laugh rippled through the dark, the sound tinged with pain at the end. They settled in, relaxing in the dark, the warmth. Caroline's little snores created a duet with Tyler's exhausted rumbling. Every time Giulia drifted off, a replay of Tyler transforming drifted into her head, and her body reacted viscerally, a shock going through her, waking her totally. Damon partying in the great hall didn't even register' her friends' snoring didn't bother her. But every time she closed her eyes, Tyler's breaking body jolted through her mind, unsettling her. She knew that beside her, Tyler's sleep came from that complete, marrow-deep physical exhaustion and mental anguish. Caroline was practically purring, practically pasted to Tyler's side, drawn to heat like a lizard basking in the sun.

She saw four a.m., 4:15 a.m., 4:27 a.m., 4:39 a.m. At 5:32 a.m., having lain in bed staring at the ceiling, she squinted in the darkness she realised was a little lighter. The sun was rising.

"Fuck it!" she blurted, tucking the blankets over Tyler, and shuffled downstairs in her black vest and panties, rubbing her face. She was overwrought, emotionally strung out and fidgety, anxious, her mind racing too much to sleep. She knew she'd pay for it later, but she just _couldn't_ settle, couldn't stop replaying Tyler's transformation in her head.

She bypassed the bar in the great room; Damon and Rose had been paying it a lot of attention last night, and she wanted to be in full possession of all her faculties. She'd hated the handicap of bruised ribs, she didn't need liquor dulling her senses. She was the only _mortal_ in a clusterfuck of supernatural drama. Her sharpest weapon was her mind. She did, however, unload the contents of the icebox she had packed into Caroline's car, going through the walk-in pantry she had never really gone through when she'd moved out. She started to cook, picking up bits learned from Elijah, ideas from breakfasts out, from a nutrition seminar at school the other week. Buttery mushrooms, sausage-gravy, ranch-potatoes, fresh buttermilk biscuits baking in the oven with trays of bacon, sausage and cherry-tomatoes on the vine.

"I'd forgotten what this was like," said a voice, and Giulia started. It was Stefan, hair already coifed for the day.

"What what's like?"

"This. You, in here, cooking," Stefan said, with a half-smile. "So, how did it go last night?" Giulia glanced up, and Stefan's smile faded. "That bad, huh?"

"There are no words," Giulia said honestly.

"So you're making breakfast, huh?"

"Tank's running on fumes," Giulia muttered. Hers, as well as Tyler's. She made Stefan jump when she whacked some thirty-six ounce steaks with her rolling-pin. "Where are you headed?"

"Hunting. Elena's on lockdown, if I don't go to school I don't get to see her," Stefan said, watching her, leaning against the freezer door as she tenderised the steaks. She left them to rest, moving on to her next task, grinding coffee-beans.

"Say it."

"Say what?"

"Whatever it is you're biting your tongue about," Giulia said, glancing over at Stefan. " _Purge_."

"I just…never thought you'd resort to being petty," Stefan shrugged. Giulia raised her eyebrows, clueless. " _Elena_. Jenna putting her on mystical house-arrest is typical you."

"I know you haven't had a parent in a while, but this is how it works; you fuck up, you get _punished_ ," Giulia told him, frowning. She was too exhausted to put up with his passive-aggressive blame-game. " _Jenna's_ the parent, Stefan – Elena scared her, and she has every right to be upset. All I did was give her Sheila's number."

"And this deal with Elijah, you don't have _anything_ to do with Jenna convincing Elena she should take it?" Stefan asked, and Giulia blinked at him.

"I've been a little out of the loop recently, watching every bone in Tyler's body break and reform into the anatomy of a rage-filled wolf, but could you just fill me in – what deal?" she asked tersely, too tired for veiled accusations and passive-aggressive bitching. Stefan sighed heavily.

"Apparently, Elijah showed up at the Gilbert house, managed to convince Jenna to invite him in; he proposed a deal to her, keeping everyone safe, if Elena went along with the sacrifice," Stefan said, and Giulia raised her eyebrows, mildly interested. _That naughty little lush_ , she thought. He'd had time to propose détente with Jenna Somers, coax Elena into a deal and babysit a werewolf-pup in one night?

"So, we knew Elijah was knocking about," Giulia said fairly. "Fair to assume he'd eventually make contact."

"Yes, but not in the Gilberts' den," Stefan said tersely. "Not with none of us there to protect Jenna."

"Stefan – he's a _thousand_ -year-old Original immune to a lance through the heart," Giulia said. "What on _earth_ do you think you could do to protect Jenna if he'd wanted to hurt her? So did Elena take the deal?"

"Yes," Stefan said, looking like it cost him the world to admit it.

"And you don't like that?"

"I'm surprised _you_ like it," Stefan shot back, and Giulia raised her eyebrows.

"Why wouldn't I? One thing less I have to worry about."

"She's your friend, there's really something more important in your diary than making sure she doesn't get slaughtered on a fiery altar? _You_ stopped Elena handing herself over to Klaus' minions, I thought you'd be more upset she's given up so easily."

"Technically I think they were Elijah's minions," Giulia corrected him thoughtfully. Obviously they'd been very low on the totem-pole not to recognise Elijah's glorious hair and immaculate suit. "Anyway, better the devil you know; aren't you at least a little glad Elena has an Original bodyguard?"

"An Original bodyguard who wants to kill her!" Giulia shrugged.

"So make sure she comes back," she said, unconcernedly. It was the simplest thing to do, and thus would be the last thing the brothers would ever think of. They'd jump through every blazing hoop, chase after every wild goose, climb that impossible mountain, putting smoke on the leash, to protect Elena, overlooking the easiest, most obvious way out of this. And she might as well have been talking to a brick-wall for all the good it did her. And this was the reason she had her own endgame, moving different parts to achieve her goal – and they were her pawns, because they weren't clever enough to play the game for themselves. Stefan was too self-righteous, Damon, too emotional. Together, they'd try to protect Elena, but they would never _dare_ risk her life by putting faith in some spell. She knew what Damon would do – and Stefan would hate him for it: she would ruin their relationship, only now starting to heal.

She'd do anything to avoid that. As much as Elena had once been her friend, Stefan and Damon _were_ family – distant, and hellaciously dysfunctional, but family. They were _brothers_. Allowing their relationship to heal was her main goal – making sure Damon could help Stefan keep Elena safe, because he loved her, and Damon cared about his baby-bro and always had, was a means to that end. And Elena had once been her friend. She didn't care so much for Elena's friendship anymore, but Giulia wasn't the callous, heartless bitch everyone thought she was. She'd protect Elena because it was the decent thing to do, because they had history – and because she _could_. So why wouldn't she set herself the challenge?

Stefan gave one of his little annoyed scoffs, the noise he made when he couldn't think of a comeback, and stalked off. "Give the racoons my regards!" she called after him, turning to make batter for pancakes. She was opening a can of pineapple slices, draining the juice into an old blender, when Rose wandered in.

"Good morning," she smiled softly. Her neat eyebrows lowered, her expression concerned as she watched Giulia add sliced peaches, a banana, apple, orange segments and lemon-juice to the blender. "Is your friend alright?"

"Tyler? He's out," Giulia said. Rose frowned concernedly.

"And how are you?" she asked softly. "You look like you haven't slept."

"I haven't." Giulia sighed, glancing around bleary-eyed. "There's coffee percolating if you want some."

"Thank you," Rose said softly, allowing her dodge. "I'm still learning my way around – where do you keep the coffee-cups?" Giulia pointed to the cupboard, and Rose filled two cups. Giulia added two teaspoons of sugar.

"Dark, strong and sweet, hm?" Rose smiled, adding a good measure of half-and-half to hers. She sighed softly. "Giulia, I have to apologise. For the other night, running away…"

"You've been running for five-hundred years," Giulia shrugged it off. "And I had it handled anyway."

"You certainly did," Rose smiled warmly. "It's lovely to see someone live up to their reputation."

"I don't think most people would appreciate gaining the reputation I apparently have," Giulia mused, and Rose chuckled.

"You're part of this world," she said, with a touch of sadness. "That second's hesitation at the sound of your name could just save your life. You're still human… That must be strange, when all your friends are supernatural." Giulia licked her lips, focused on getting any lumps out of the pancake-batter. Rose perched on a bar-stool at the island, hands wrapped around her cup of coffee and pointedly sitting outside of direct sunlight. Giulia reached back and adjusted the blinds to send the shards of early-morning sunlight onto the ceiling. "Damon told me a few things he thought I should know if I'm going to stay here…other than that if I betray him in any way he'll rip my heart out and shove it down my throat." Giulia scoffed, rolling her eyes, and Rose's pretty eyes twinkled. Rose sighed softly, her smile fading.

"I shouldn't have left you. It doesn't matter that you're very capable of defending yourself – you're a seventeen-year-old human. You've got more backbone than is good for you, Giulia Salvatore," Rose declared gently, raising her coffee-cup in a salute.

"It's okay that you don't like conflict," Giulia said quietly, remembering that it had been Rose who had masterminded Elena's abduction – Trevor who carried it out.

"I'm just tired of it," Rose admitted. "It's been a very long time since I've been invested enough to put my neck out there for anyone else. Five centuries on the run, it's not easy to form bonds."

"Cake's not worth the bake," Giulia said quietly. She felt that way about Elena and Bonnie – they had once been her friends, but the effort she been putting in to be their friend wasn't worth what she got out of it. Rose gave her a bitter smile.

"Exactly," she said quietly. She glanced around the island, where Giulia had made a glorious mess only she could sort out.

"I'm sorry about your friend Trevor," Giulia said earnestly. She couldn't imagine losing Caroline, after spending five-hundred years devoted to her. No, she could; and that was why she was working so hard to cover all possibly conceivable bases.

"You could say my freedom is bittersweet," Rose said, sighing softly.

"Do you like it here?" Giulia asked.

"Damon is very entertaining. Your library is one of the finest I've seen in years," Rose smiled. "And I hear Mystic Falls is a lovely little sleepy town."

"And you really want to stay?"

"I'm seriously considering it."

"Not because you've been sleeping with Damon?"

"Not – not entirely because of that," Rose chuckled at her bluntness. "I can't deny there aren't certain perks, but I've always liked to be useful. Helping you and your friends stay out of trouble – although I haven't been successful at all so far… I don't know. I suppose we're both similar in that our worlds have been knocked off-kilter. Trevor was my centre of gravity for centuries. I'm trying to establish a new one."

"Well, I guess you haven't been set fire to in your sleep, so Stefan and Damon don't mind you staying here," Giulia said, and Rose chuckled. "I hate this house, I'm still trying to figure out what to do with it so it's not just a huge money-drain, but you're welcome to stay."

"Thank you," Rose smiled. She frowned gently. "What were you thinking of doing with this place?"

"Nothing that actually binds me to staying here to manage it," Giulia said drily, and Rose chuckled. "I just…don't like being here. I used to love living in the creepiest house in Mystic Falls." But too many of her relatives had met their gruesome ends here; she refused to be another one of the Salvatores wheeled out on a gurney under suspicious circumstances.

"I suppose creepy is only its reputation; it's a very beautiful building," Rose said. "I'm sure the gardens are quite stunning."

"Apparently my grandmother was obsessed with English rose-gardens."

"With good reason," Rose chuckled, and Giulia nodded.

"If I had the time and the inclination I might actually devote some time to restoring them," Giulia said, sighing. "I did think maybe I could turn this place into some kind of destination-restaurant with a huge kitchen-garden, but I don't want to be a chef. And it's Stefan and Damon's home, too; they'll come back occasionally. I don't want to sell it, either."

"Well, keep thinking on it," Rose shrugged delicately. "You'll think of something that will suit you – and give Damon and Stefan a home to come back to when they're tired."

"For the moment, I think I just want to restore it," Giulia said quietly. There were parts of the house that needed a little love and attention, the stables and barns, and she was sure she could do something with the attic once it was cleared out. "Spend some money on the woodwork and redecorate the bedrooms."

"Well, I believe in earning my keep," Rose smiled, "so by all means, put me to work. I'm far better at cleaning than killing."

"You're going to wish you hadn't said that," Giulia promised her sweetly, and Rose chuckled.

"Write up a list of chores and I swear you won't recognise the place," she said, taking up her coffee-cup and slipping off the bar-stool. She tilted her head to one side, looking thoughtful. "I think your friends are stirring."

"Oh, good," Giulia said, and she got to work as Rose drifted out of the room. She set the huge steaks on the griddle, blitzed the contents of the blender, removed the bacon, sausages, ranch-potatoes and tomatoes from the oven with the tray of fresh biscuits, warmed the sausage-gravy, turned the heat up on the mushrooms, separated some chopped fruit into three bowls, scrambled a load of eggs with sautéed bell peppers, cheese, mushrooms and onions, popped several slices of bread in the toaster, grimaced at the contents of a forgotten old strawberry-jam jar in the refrigerator, finding a dusty grape-jelly jar in the pantry – it had been her dad's favourite, but she'd never understood it; like her Italian mother she believed grapes were for _Prosecco_. She heated another pan on the stove, and started dunking pineapple-rings into the pancake-batter.

Tyler had grown up with an emotionally-distant mother and an abusive-father, but in childhood he'd had a nanny who used to trick him into eating fruit by making a treat that he loved to this day; pancakes with hidden rings of pineapple tucked inside, juicy and sweet and surrounded by fluffy deliciousness. Giulia had made them for their first anniversary, and they would always remind Tyler of childhood memories with his favourite nanny – whom he'd once run away to go and live with after Carol had fired her. He'd made himself a grape-jelly and bologna sandwich, figuring he liked both in his sandwiches, and Giulia's dad had picked him up wandering down the road out of town when Carol had called around in a panic.

Pineapple pancakes, grape-jelly and steaks were some of Tyler's favourite things. Giulia reached for an old serving-dish in one of the cabinets and started piling up Tyler's breakfast. An entire steak, loaded scrambled eggs, ranch-potatoes, sausage, bacon, biscuits and gravy, mushrooms, tomatoes, pineapple pancakes, a fruit-cup, a dollop of grape jelly in a little dish with triangles of freshly-baked toast, a cup of dark coffee with a ton of sugar and half-and-half and a fresh fruit smoothie to balance out the tray she had to use to carry it all upstairs. _Man vs Food, eat your heart out,_ she thought.

Whether or not Rose had heard Caroline and Tyler stirring, they weren't awake when she shuffled carefully into her old room. She found them, cuddled up in bed, looking so peaceful and so relaxed, so _cute_ , she had the sudden, inexplicable feeling that she was a third-wheel. Which was ridiculous – this was her room; he'd turned into a freaking werewolf last night! There was nothing cutesy or romantic about the fact that Caroline had practically latched onto Tyler like a sloth, absorbing his heat. But she couldn't shake the feeling that she was…intruding. Like this was something very intimate. They had all gone through it together, Giulia would never be able to forget it. But she'd be damned if she ever let Tyler go through it again. If Sheila had seen him last night, she would never have given Giulia the caveat of him transforming once as amends.

But Giulia respected Sheila's demands, her morals as a witch, a witch who was _helping_ her, sometimes unquestioningly. So she'd never tell Tyler this was part of Sheila's deal. He had to go through it once, to respect what it meant to turn into a werewolf, to be truly appreciate of the gift Giulia had engineered for him.

She punted the door shut behind her, and Tyler started with a distinctly canine snuffle. Without even opening his eyes, he sniffed at the air, rising to a sitting-position. Rubbing his eyes, looking as exhausted as she felt – though, she thought bitterly, he'd at least had a few solid hours of complete, blissful unconsciousness – Tyler groaned and focused on her. He blinked, looking staggered.

"Morning," she said, suddenly shy. There was only one time in the entire time they'd been dating that she could remember making Tyler breakfast – his parents had spent the weekend in Richmond, and she'd stayed over; only, Richard and Carol had come home earlier than Tyler expected and Giulia had had to climb out the window. That was at the point in their relationship where Mrs Lockwood had felt they were too young to be allowed closed-doors when Giulia spent time over at Tyler's house – having no idea they'd been having sex for weeks, wherever they could! Backseats of cars, in the woods, on tumble-dryers, sofas in the Mayor's private study.

"Hey," Tyler blinked, staring at her. "Is that for me and Caroline?"

"Uh…this is for you," Giulia said, offering Tyler the tray. "I thought you'd be…starving." She tilted her head to one side, watching curiously as Tyler scented the air again.

"Did you make pineapple pancakes?" he asked, in mild awe.

"Yup. And there's more, I just couldn't carry it all," Giulia said, and she set the tray in Tyler's lap. "There's grape jelly, too. And I left the stake a little on the rarer side than you'd usually have it."

"No, no, this is great," Tyler said, staring at the enormous serving-platter. "It smells perfect." Giulia raised an eyebrow.

"Okay, well, I'll go get mine and Caroline's breakfasts," Giulia said. Tyler had demolished half the steak and most of the pancakes before she'd returned, laden down with her breakfast and Caroline's, and a plate of fresh pineapple pancakes piled high.

"Hey," Caroline smiled, stretching. She eyed the loaded plate Giulia handed her. "Wow! Is this fresh bread?! Did you – you didn't sleep at all, did you? _Giulia_?!"

" _What_?!" She shrugged, drawing the chair out from her old desk, starting on her eggs. She was so tired she barely had an appetite, but she knew if she didn't eat she'd just feel worse, and crash harder, sooner. She didn't start classes until later in the morning and her load was light today. She'd already finished her assignments and was ahead of herself with any reading. "I didn't stay up drinking all night with Damon and Rose!"

"Pancakes are good," Tyler muttered, shoving a loaded forkful of steak, pancake and eggs into his mouth. Giulia's jaw dropped – surely he'd detached his to fit all that in there?! – watching Tyler's serving-platter empty.

"There's more," she said weakly, slinging fresh pancakes at him. Caroline looked a little nauseated watching him, picking daintily at her biscuits and gravy and fruit-cup.

"So I guess you're hungry," Caroline remarked, watching him. Tyler nodded.

"And you ate five power-bars last night," Giulia muttered.

"Why's your plate so loaded?" Tyler asked her. " _You_ ate dinner last night."

"I lost it," Giulia said grimly. Tyler flitted a glance her way

"Shouldn't you be heading to Richmond?" Caroline asked, checking her phone.

"I've got a late class this morning," Giulia said gratefully. She didn't have her first lecture until eleven a.m. "But if you could give me a ride to my car, I'd appreciate it."

"Sure." Caroline nudged Tyler, who winced without her noticing. "Hey, we should get ready for school; we'll be late. I'll go use one of the other thousand bathrooms in this place." Half an hour later, Giulia was diving out of Caroline's car at high-speed so they weren't late for school. If any of their teachers had seen Tyler last night, they would all have been astounded he was standing, let alone racing across the lawn to get inside before the bell. She groaned as she relaxed into the driver's seat, resting arms and head on the steering-wheel. She might've dozed off, the buzz and jingle of her cell-phone startling her.

"Hulluhn?"

" _Giulia? It's Jenna. Did I wake you_?"

"Am I awake?"

" _I'll take that as a yes. Hey, can we meet today? I left a message on your phone last-night; Jeremy told me you were with Tyler. Can we talk over coffee_?"

"Coffee is good," Giulia grumbled, checking her watch, and realising there was a hand-print bruise curled around it – from Tyler. She let out a huge yawn, rubbed her face and shook herself a little, trying to wake herself up. "I have a lecture at eleven."

" _Yeah, I'm in meetings with my thesis-adviser until noon," Jenna said. "How about we meet at the Grind at 12:15_?"

* * *

How she'd managed to stay awake for her lecture, she had no idea, let alone having absorbed so much of it; the air-conditioning in the building was broken, and it felt like the height of summer – on top of that, it was an economics lecture, which she could sleep through any day and still know more than the professor. The perfect scenario for her to fall deeply, blissfully asleep. But she didn't. Out of politeness, she never fell asleep in her classes; she was paying for the privilege of being there.

But she could've auditioned for the Walking Dead as an extra; she was conscious but barely functioning. She ordered a double-espresso and made the mistake of sitting on one of the armchairs, resting her head on her hand. She jolted awake when someone touched her knee, coughing and downing her cold espresso. It was 12:47 p.m. by her watch.

"Hey, I'm sorry I'm so late," Jenna apologised, dropping into the armchair with a thankful groan. "I got into an argument with my adviser."

Giulia yawned through her response, waving a hand. A waiter appeared with Jenna's coffee, asking if Giulia needed anything.

"No, thank you," she said. If a double espresso didn't help, the only thing for it was to curl up in her Beetle between her lecture and seminar this afternoon. She sighed, watching Jenna stir brown-sugar into her cappuccino, looking like she wished it were a rich, fruity red wine. "So, am I gonna get a scolding, or are we having a friendly catch-up?" She hadn't gotten stoned with Jeremy for months, to her recollection. Neither was she sleeping with him, or being overtly hostile to Elena. Perhaps Jenna had arranged for a stripper to surprise them at the café, in thanks for Giulia killing those vampires set on delivering Elena to Elijah.

"I'm not your mom, Giulia; I can't scold you," Jenna said fairly. She eyed Giulia, barely able to keep her eyes open. "Can't say I wasn't pissed and terrified Elijah showed up on my porch, talking about you. Why didn't you ever say anything about it?"

"So I'm sleeping with him, it's nobody's business but ours," Giulia shrugged.

"Wait – you're sleeping with –! With _Elijah_?!"

"Crap!" Giulia grimaced. "Did Elijah not tell you that?"

"No, Elijah did not tell me that! Why wouldn't _you_ tell me that?!"

"I just did tell you that!" Giulia blurted, a little more awake. _Oops_. "Suddenly regretting the sleep-deprivation. This is what happens when I become a slave to my friends!" She sighed heavily, shaking her head.

"You've been _sleeping_ with –?!"

" _Yes_!" Giulia cried, suddenly feeling very flushed. "If he didn't 'fess up to you about that, what _did_ he tell you?"

"The Sun and Moon Curse. It's a fake."

"Oh. That. That makes more sense," Giulia nodded.

"He did mention you two met months ago," Jenna said carefully. "Just after your dad was killed."

"Mm." The first of many Lost Weekends that had cemented Giulia's lifestyle as a dedicated hedonist. "So. He told you about the curse."

"Yeah," Jenna said, sighing. "Suddenly, my family? Not so dysfunctional."

"One thing I'll say for all this supernatural crap; it really puts things in perspective," Giulia sighed.

"Just sucks that a terrifyingly elegant stranger had to tell me what's going on," Jenna said, mild accusation in her tone. Giulia hadn't felt guilty about keeping the truth from people in the past; she wasn't going to start now.

"Yes, I'm annoyed at him about that," Giulia said honestly. He'd changed the game – _their_ game.

"You know, when you told me about Elena being in danger, I thought… I don't even know what I thought, all I know is that I was scared and overwhelmed. And pissed," Jenna sighed, cradling her coffee-cup. "And now that I know why Elijah wants to lure Klaus out by using Elena…it makes me just so incredibly… _sad_. That _this_ is what he has to resort to, to see his family again. I can't even imagine. And…it makes it a lot harder to think that Stefan and Damon will do anything to stop him. If they even knew…"

"Are you going to tell them about the curse?"

"Do you not want me to?" Jenna asked succinctly. Her features were sharpening, the… _parent_ in her shining through.

"Not particularly."

"Why not?" Jenna asked, her tone fair.

"Because, they'll want to activate the WonderTwin rings of superpower! They'll get _ideas_ and they'll just mess everything up, and then _I'll_ have to be the one to untangle everything and set things to rights," Giulia yawned. "And there are too many things at stake for me to let them interfere with all their half-assed grand schemes. They're not as clever as they like to think they are."

"Whereas you are?"

"Yes." Jenna rolled her eyes, looking half-amused, half-annoyed.

So Elijah had told Jenna the secret – and Giulia, in her befuddled, sleep-deprived, full-moon-PTSD state, had blurted another. Well, she supposed it had to come out sooner or later, and she was fairly certain Sheila knew already – she was tactful enough not to bring it up, but witches got _vibes_ and she and Sheila had hugged and touched hands often enough Sheila could get a reading off her. She'd rather people _didn't_ know about her and Elijah – she felt uncomfortable, agitated that Jenna knew, that she had messed up, that she knew the secret. But Elijah had told Jenna they knew each other; he had already crossed the line.

"Elijah did tell me you know about the curse, and that you've been working for months to protect Elena," Jenna said softly.

Giulia shrugged. "Elena's not my primary concern – Elijah told you a werewolf and a vampire have to die in the ritual too?" she said, glancing at Jenna, who nodded sombrely. "I'm not protecting Elena. I'm protecting Caroline – and now Tyler."

"Katherine turned Caroline, and triggered Tyler's werewolf-curse so they could be sacrificed along with Elena," Jenna said softly, realisation seeming to dawn. "How can you protect everybody by yourself? You haven't made a deal with Elijah, too, have you?" Giulia chuckled.

"Not quite, but there is certain give-and-take," she said, and Jenna's eyebrows rose.

"Oh – ew! I mean… _Really_!" Jenna gave her a disapproving look, and Giulia gave her a lascivious grin. "Be serious."

"No, I haven't made a deal with Elijah. We're…playing a game," Giulia shrugged. Jenna stared at her.

"This…this is a game to you?"

"Why shouldn't it be? A hundred moving puzzle-pieces, bonuses, handicaps," Giulia said fairly. "Elijah's got his endgame, I have mine; sometimes the means to the different ends are similar. We both know the truth about the curse, so while Elijah's plotting to reunite his family by drawing Klaus out with the sacrifice, I'm trying to keep everyone alive despite it." She couldn't truthfully say she didn't care what state they were all in afterward – turning Elena into a vampire was the easy way out of the predicament, and Giulia loved a _challenge_. Sadly, preserving Elena's life wasn't as difficult as she'd hoped it would be; Sheila had a relatively simple spell ready for her.

"You don't think the best thing is to kill this Klaus guy?"

"That's Elijah's angle… But I don't think he's prepared to really go through with it," Giulia mused. If Elijah hadn't killed his younger-brother after a thousand years, he wasn't going to do it now. Not with so much at stake, not knowing what he did about his brother's tactics –: and Giulia had guessed what Elijah had known deep-down for years, that Klaus would never give up control over his family by feeding their corpses to the seas. Elijah couldn't risk not finding them by killing Klaus. "The boys want to kill Klaus only because it's the most obvious solution."

"But it's not the only one," Jenna said softly.

"No." And Giulia was a dynamic thinker. She'd never settle for the obvious.

"I'm sorry – I just can't stop coming back to this; Elijah told me you met on Halloween," Jenna grimaced uncomfortably. Giulia sighed, rolling her eyes. "How long have you been…?"

"A couple months," Giulia shrugged, eyeing the empty espresso-cup mournfully. She heaved a sigh, avoiding Jenna's eye. It wasn't that she felt guilty, she just…regretted she had spilled the secret. Her _own_ secret. She knew she couldn't have kept her and Elijah in a little box forever. She'd just…never expected the lid to be lifted off it quite so soon – she'd hoped to keep him to herself just a little longer. But the doppelgänger was in active play, Elijah had outed himself to Jenna, and Giulia had blabbed due to sleep-deprivation. She pinched the bridge of her nose, rubbing her exhausted eyes. Jenna frowned at her.

"What's going on, Giulia?" she asked quietly.

"I don't know." Giulia stared at her, wide- and bleary-eyed. Jenna knew the secret. How did she go about explaining things when she couldn't admit them, even to herself? She tried, and probably failed, to explain to Jenna about her and Elijah…about their relationship, and keeping it separate from what they both had to do because of the curse.

"Things don't stay separate, Giulia," Jenna said kindly. "Real life is messy and complicated, and…amazing."

"I know," Giulia said hoarsely. "I just…wanted something…something private, something special and _wonderful_ that…that they couldn't ruin. And I've gone and told you and spoiled it." She could feel herself getting worked up – whether it was exhaustion from last night, overextending herself the last few weeks with school, Elijah, everything else, or the fact that this was the first time she'd been called up on _Elijah_ … She was exhausted, befuddled, she wanted her bed but she couldn't stop thinking about Tyler's transformation, she was upset that she was more disappointed by Elijah than upset about Slater being dead, she was devastated from last night, nauseous about it, worked herself up into a state just thinking about it, eyes burning unbearably, throat tight, nose stinging ominously, and her fingers started to tremble, the upset building as she noticed those bruises on her hands again where Tyler had clutched them. Elijah had stayed in there with him, talking to him for hours. Her eyes burned, and she sniffed, staring hard at her crumpled napkin rather than let tears fall.

"It's not spoiled because I know," Jenna said softly. "Giulia – the year you've had, it's…it's _amazing_ that you've even let someone in, let alone fallen in love."

"I'm not in love," Giulia protested, her voice breaking. "I _can't_ be."

Jenna looked like she thought Giulia was being absurd. "Why not?"

"Because it's ridiculous."

"It doesn't have to make sense, Giulia," Jenna half-laughed. "Isn't that half the fun? Because it's thrilling and unlikely and he's unexpected?"

"It's ridiculous because he's a thousand-year-old Viking vampire. And after this sacrifice…everything will change," Giulia sniffed. She hadn't said a word about this to anyone, especially not Elijah – who could she talk to about it? Nobody knew, because she didn't want anyone to have any input. "I just don't see anything in it."

"And that's why you wanted to keep it secret?" Jenna asked sadly. "Because you know it won't last?"

"I don't want anyone's opinions on me and Elijah," Giulia said, working herself up again. _Damn Tyler_ , she thought. "I…I'm enjoying myself too much with him to let anyone spoil it. And then afterwards, when he leaves, I don't need the…the looks of pity and smug self-righteousness they'll give me, like it was inevitable, like I deserve to _hurt_ because…because they think I'm a heartless bitch and I got what was coming to me, because no-one could ever lo– …No-one would ever want to _be_ with me."

For a moment, Jenna didn't speak; she looked too afraid to, in case Giulia burst into tears. But she looked appalled, and Giulia was reminded not for the first time that Jenna was a _parent_. And a very good one. "You mean Elena and Bonnie, and your other friends," she said softly.

"And I don't need Damon and Stefan _not_ caring that I'm…that I'm _in love_ with a thousand-year-old vampire who'll leave when he gets what he wants, because he will," Giulia blurted hoarsely, her voice breaking, as she sniffed, forcing her hand under her eyes. "If he succeeds or he ends up being killed, he'll be _gone_ … He won't need me anymore."

Jenna's expression blossomed into something that was both delicate and fierce. "That is _not_ true, honey. I can say, with complete honesty, I could live a thousand years and never meet anyone as special as you. You're too weird." Giulia choked a laugh.

"It doesn't make sense," she coughed, rubbing her eyes and succeeding only in smearing her mascara, stinging her eyes. "He's had I don't know how many _girlfriends_ in the past, what's he…what's he doing with me?"

"Because you are extraordinary," Jenna said softly. "He's not the only one who can see it; just some people aren't the best at appreciating it. Tell me about him. About _you_ …"

"Why do you want to know about…us?" Giulia asked, regretting that she looked at Jenna only with suspicion. Fleetingly, it occurred to her that Elijah might've put her up to this – but Jenna smelled of that rosy-lavender perfume from the vervain flowers Giulia cultivated. She hadn't been compelled to dig.

"The only Elijah I know is the one who showed up on my porch telling me why my niece is integral in a blood-curse, strong-arming me into accepting a deal to keep everyone safe if we agree to let Elena sacrifice herself… Maybe if I could see things…see _him_ from your perspective, I wouldn't be so anxious about trusting him… The fact he wants to save his daughter, that just makes he afraid there's nothing he _won't_ do…" Jenna admitted honestly. There was that to consider, and as a parent herself, Jenna's perspective was invaluable because _she_ could appreciate Elijah's struggle; Stefan and Damon couldn't, they never would. Even Damon had never truly been a parent; his son had been in effect orphaned since early infancy. Jenna sighed, watching her carefully with that motherly expression she must have learned from her ultra-maternal older-sister Miranda. "And because he's that important to you, you've kept him secret from everyone – even _Caroline_ … How did you fall in love with Elijah?"

Giulia licked her dry lips. "Slowly…and then, all at once," she admitted on a solemn whisper. _Quicker and easier than falling asleep_ , she thought. Today, so poignant.

"Tell me about it," Jenna smiled encouragingly. "The first time you met him…"

"I was going commando," Giulia said, and Jenna blurted a laugh, surprised, shooting her an inquisitive, elated smile. "Yeah, I went with Stefan's friend Lexi to New York and I didn't have anything with me, not even a toothbrush. We rolled up to this penthouse and the most _fabulous_ vampire on the Upper-East Side took me to one side and put me in a little red suede dress…"

"Red dress, always classic," Jenna beamed. "Red's your colour."

"Thank you," Giulia smiled bashfully. "And…Elijah just…walked through the front-door while I was slaughtering the others at poker." Jenna chuckled. "We all went out dancing, and…we danced together. There was liquor involved, and _Rocky Horror_. And then I was invited to their winter solstice celebration, and…things sort of progressed from there…" She told Jenna a little more, not giving away any intimate details of Elijah's life or things she wanted to keep private, just between her and Elijah, but… It was strange, and delightful, to be able to talk about Elijah to someone else – to… _gush_. To just be able to tell someone else how _splendid_ he was. To tell someone else how _sweet_ , how _thoughtful_ he was, how sassy and ironic and talented…and how glad she was that she got to enjoy him. Jenna giggled softly when she told her that Elijah appreciated her lust for the Eleventh Doctor; that he was an insanely gifted pianist; that he was a wonderful cook; Giulia loved his sense of humour, and how _flirty_ he could be. Dancing with him was like nothing she had ever experienced, and probably never would again. She… _loved_ dancing with him – _being_ with him.

She was in love with Elijah.

Giulia swallowed, asking quietly, "Are you going to tell Stefan and Damon?" Jenna watched her for a minute, then sighed. She shook her head.

"I don't think that that would be a good idea," she said. "I…think for now, it's best we just…let the boys keep doing what they're doing. Just…keep me in the loop, okay?" Giulia nodded mutely, biting the inside of her cheek.

"Hey, Giulia?" Jenna said, as they gathered their things; they both had afternoon-classes to get to. "Just…be careful, okay?" Giulia stared after her as Jenna dashed off to a seminar, thinking hard.

All she really wanted to do was go home, curl up under her duvet and cry. She was in love with Elijah Mikaelson. There was no going back from that, no getting over it. Only accepting that her world was forever altered because of it.

She survived her afternoon lessons, barely. Luckily she had finished her assignments and reading in preparation for Tyler's transformation; she had to stop on her drive home, pulling onto the side of the road, to jog up and down, trying to wake herself up. She had the windows rolled down for the cooler evening breeze and the stereo cranked up until it was almost painful, and she managed to get home without colliding with anything or breaking any laws. Exhausted, relieved, she tumbled out of her car and shuffled to the front-door.

Half-asleep, she shuffled over the threshold, dazed and heavy-eyed. She wanted her _bed_.

That prickling sensation feathered up and down her spine, and she shivered, standing up a little straighter, eyes straining in the dim interior of the house, no lights on, the sun starting to set behind some ominous clouds that had drawn in for the evening.

She glanced around, and yelled.

She'd thought it was a stranger standing behind her. Clammy-looking pale skin, dotted with sweat, bloodshot, unfocused dark eyes, almost panting for air, his shirt untucked and cuffs and top button undone. Sudden concern flared through her, pushing aside any residual annoyance or disappointment – something was _wrong_.

" _Elijah_?"

* * *

 **A.N.** : So…I'm exhausted so I have to start writing the next chapter tomorrow! I hope you liked this one.


	29. Fractured

**A.N.** : So…this chapter is dedicated to anyone who wanted more Giulijah smut. And anyone who wanted to see into Elijah's past. People have asked for a breakdown of influences for Elijah's family: Isak – Garrett Hedlund, Lagertha – Katheryn Winnick, Willem – Chris Hemsworth, Gyda – a combo of Emma Watson and Alicia Vikander. And I never bought the actress who played Esther, there was no chemistry, and she doesn't look much like Claire Holt – someone like Gwyneth Paltrow, because, heck, she's an all-powerful witch, why wouldn't she use magic to slow the aging?!

* * *

 **Dangerous Beauty**

 _29_

 _Fractured_

* * *

He inhaled sharply, swaying where he stood in an onslaught of emotion so powerful, it nearly knocked him over, his chest surely rendered in two. Heartbroken and delirious, _elated_ , he nearly dropped to his knees and wept at the sight of her. Hesitantly, he reached out a hand, fingers trembling, and his entire body jolted at the feel of her warmth against his eternally-chill skin, stroking his thumb against her high cheekbone, gazing wondrously at that lovely oval face, porcelain skin immaculate, those exquisite lips he knew so intimately, the neat little nose, the expressive dark eyebrows and those _eyes_ … Glowing bright-grey, mercurial, full of mirth and irony, ferocity, gentleness, and far too old for a woman who looked so young.

He blinked tears away, and staggered back a pace, shocked and dismayed. The memory of a messy, curling braid cascading down a slender back, pinned with delicate combs and threaded with silver silk bright against dark hair, loose curls drifting lazily across a face that haunted his dreams, drifted away as swiftly as it had crept up on him. He blinked away the image of Lucrezia beaming at him in the strong sunlight of southern France, as children's laughter echoed on the air laden with perfume from a flower-garden he'd never seen the like of. She was wearing that pale-lilac velvet gown with the low neckline in the shape of a V that showed tantalising glimpses of the generous swells of her breasts whenever she leaned across a blanket to help herself to food, laughing in genuine surprise as a little boy with golden curls draped with a flower-garland launched himself at her out of nowhere, knees green from the grass, tunic rumpled, plucked wildflowers clutched in his tiny fat little fingers, bowling her over; her laugh rang out as she hugged the little boy to him, flat on her back, the silver diadem she always wore, set with greyish-lavender tourmalines, flashing in the sun as it rolled away, dislodged; her eyes twinkled at him as she hugged the little boy to her, sprawled on the grass, raising a sticky lemon-lavender roasted chicken-leg to her lips, tearing at the flesh with her beautiful white teeth…

He blinked, the sunlight faded, and he swayed, confused. It was not…Lucrezia… But the face shadowed in the dark was so strikingly similar, and he frowned at her, blinking sweat out of his eyes as polished walls and dramatic lighting came into focus, the pale face shimmering, Lucrezia softening to Giulia's more youthful looks, a glimpse of Lucrezia's brilliant smile lingering, as if she was winking from Giulia's face.

"Elijah – oh my – what the _hell_ did you do?" Giulia blurted, more tired than irate, her features morphing from fright to revulsion and curiosity to gentle compassion in a second. She sighed, and Elijah realised, blinking the hallucinations away, how exhausted she was; she looked like he felt, and he was sure he looked worse. "And there we were telling Tyler he hadn't hurt anyone." She sighed, rubbing her face tiredly, and took him gently by the hand after setting her backpack down on an occasional table in the hall. "Come on…"

He'd been on his own all day, and more relieved to be than in anyone else's company. It had been centuries since he had felt the effects of a werewolf-bite – New Orleans, just after he and his siblings had landed on the shores of the young French colony in the very early Eighteenth Century.

And he had forgotten how… _debilitating_ it was. Not to mention inconvenient, and uncomfortable. The trembling in his limbs, the fever that made him feel like he was stuck in a furnace but didn't chase away the unnatural chill, the profuse sweating, the pain in his abdomen and lower-back, venom attacking his central nervous system, wiping out his organs, seething through his bones. Worse, the venom affected his mind. Made him do things he wouldn't ordinarily, made him forgetful, making him see things he was starting to forget were memories, they had started to come onto him so strongly, he was drawn into them. The hunger made his teeth ache, and it took everything in what little mental-clarity he had not to give in.

This was Giulia. Not Lucrezia, a thousand years lost. Lost, but not gone to him. He carried her with him, always, tucked just under the surface, too heart-sore and too sorrowful, wistful for her, to bury her completely in the deep chasm that was his heart, lined with pockets full of secrets; she was the first torture unfurling in his mind like a flower starting to blossom, petal by petal, turning his own mind against him with every memory that unfolded, every detail he remembered, every agony he relived.

He fell into a doze on the bed, fitful and uncomfortable – Giulia had stripped him of his shoes and clothing, his watch glinted on the bedside-table, and he gazed blearily at the delicate little ring on his finger, studded with an old blue stone, wondering where it had come from, how soft the sheets were, and who had so masterfully panelled the bedchamber walls, and he flinched when a sun-drenched memory of Gyda, her hair piled high, wearing a pale sage-green _sacque_ , turning from the window, her smile so gentle, sad. It was time to say goodbye again. Their goodbyes came too swiftly, and he waited too long to see her again. But it was necessary, for them both to be their own people, to grow. And she had. Her Enlightenment literature had entranced him, and he turned to his journey back to New Orleans with a certain shame. While slaves built up the city, his daughter had opened a salon in her new Parisian home to entertain the free-thinkers of the time. He was reminded, with a smile, of the time Torvi had become angered at him for leaving her behind during the summer-raids; Gyda had been a small girl, no older than eight or nine, and run in, finding the pair brawling with their shields and fists – rather, Torvi taking out her frustrations on him, and Elijah teasing her. " _Never argue like that again!_ " she had scolded. " _You could have killed each other_." Elijah remembered chuckling breathlessly, his lip split, Torvi fuming beside him, her belly gently swollen, and he grinned. "'Tis a strange thing, when the piglet must teach the sow and boar a lesson." He'd laughed richly when little Gyda had kicked his shin; he'd scooped her up, deposited her in her bed with Björn and little Alrik, and sidled back to his bed, coming up behind Torvi, wrapping his arms around her, rubbing his hands over her belly. Torvi's dark eyes flashed fiercely as she glanced over her shoulder, but he smiled gently, and she melted. She stripped his clothes, and they fought in bed, settling the dispute.

He slipped from the bed, swaying and disoriented, and a laugh echoed, rich and free, sending a shiver through him, and he followed the sound of raindrops.

There she was. Naked and glorious, riotously-curling dark wet hair pasted over one full breast, sending him a knowing smile full of promise over her shoulder. He blinked, and swallowed, his surroundings shifted in an instant, warm and coppery and glowing wood panelling, a sheet of gleaming glass sparkling with tiny droplets of water; it smelled like wildflowers and the sharp tang of pink-grapefruit, the humidity from the shower made it close, difficult to breathe on top of his fever, and he stumbled. She caught him, righting him, an arm around his waist, and Lucrezia gazed at him, relaxed and her tired, twinkling eyes so full of… _love_ and irony, teasing him…his body came awake for her, as it always had since the first time he saw her in that terrifying dungeon, bound with his brothers. The baths had given him a feeling of unease the first time she had coaxed him down here, until the narrow passage had opened into a steaming cavern, a natural bath made beautiful centuries before by _Romans_ who had painted the walls with their gods she told him stories about as they swam in the naturally warm water. She had tried to pin her long hair up with elaborate combs, dark tendrils that had escaped curling around her face, the rest draped over one breast, the other giving him a tantalising glimpse of a delicious little pink nipple, and she gave him that little smile, that private one he saw when they were alone, when they were…with his family, just _them_ , or cooing over Alexandre. That was _his_ smile. His _Lucrezia_. Not the Countess of Provence.

A woman like her had two faces; one she showed to the world, and one she wore only in private. With him, she was always Lucrezia. And she cradled his waist in her slim arms, nuzzling his nose before giving him a gentle kiss, taking one hand and guiding it over her breast, down the flat of her stomach, to the wet heat between her thighs. She gave a soft whimper, moaning, and he delved in, stealing a kiss, as she rocked on her tiptoes, clutching him to her, giving her hips a little roll. It was the baths, _their_ baths, his favourite place, and _her_ favourite place to have each other any way they wanted – and every way. She had brought a long chair down here for them, and he gave her luxuriating kisses, enthralled by her, his chest aching, gripping her thighs just under her backside, lifting her to his waist, and carried her over to it, gently setting her down on the embroidered cushion. Gazing up at him with those mercurial silver eyes, those exquisite lips, her breath caught, and he wondered why shock and wonder flitted across her face, replaced by a rich smile that made his knees weak, she gave a delicious, breathless laugh, reaching for him, giving him a searing kiss that took his breath away as she handled him so expertly.

"Elijah," she said softly, a laugh on her lips, her eyes sparkling, as she pulled him down onto the chair beside her, swiftly climbing into his lap; he choked on a breath, and she lost hers in a groan as she took him deep with one luxurious roll of her hips, threading her fingers with his, her eyes and her smile gentle and entrancing as she took him into her, making him shudder at the exquisite sensation he felt in every part of his body, overwhelming and exquisite and her lips were on his, warm and soft, her breasts swaying in front of his eyes, glorious pale swells tipped with upturned pretty little nipples she loved to have bitten and tugged with his teeth, cupping her breasts for him with their joined hands and whimpering, head falling back as her back arched to the sensation; she had reached that point, letting him know with her expression, drawn and almost pained, raking her fingernails over his chest, mewling, and Elijah panted, untangling their fingers, regretfully leaving her breasts, instead laving them with attention from his tongue, suckling her until she could barely breathe from the onslaught of sensation, and he frowned, only for a second considering the tiny hard little ring through one nipple, cold and tangy against his tongue, clasping her ass firmly in his splayed hands, and her smile of anticipation glowed, shifting ever so slightly in his lap as he adjusted himself on the chair, knees wide, and he thrust his hips up, hard, as he pushed her down, using the strength in his own body to take her as hard as she wanted him, fast and deep until he couldn't tell where he ended and she began. She reached back, hands on his knees for leverage, whimpering as she rolled her hips to match his thrusts, until she froze and shuddered, her expression gentling to the most delicate smile, her chest heaving, and he grunted, coming himself in a terrifying wave of blinding sensation that made his heart stop. He drew her to him, cradled against his chest, seated deep inside her, thrusting so gently the way she loved after she _came_ , drawing her back into herself so delicately, he could feel _her_ , and the tender kisses she dusted against his chest, taste her sweat and the delicate scent of lavender that always drifted from her long, curling hair that tickled against his chest-hair… He rolled her onto her back on the long chair, parting her thighs where she curled up, her expression content and faraway, kissing the insides of her knees, all the way up, and she sighed, his kisses and licks drawing her gently back. She curled her fingers in his long hair, drawing him closer, biting her swollen lip. She had never minded his beard, and he kissed and licked and sucked with abandon as she writhed on soft sheets. She gentled into an easy sleep, and he curled up beside her, the mattress perfect beneath him, something blowing a gentle breeze and the scent of wildflowers and pink grapefruit from her hair.

He shot up in bed, groaning in pain, hunched over, clutching his stomach, nausea building as the taste of copper taunted his senses, his insides seeming to shatter into thousands of tiny needles that pierced his bones in patterns like a tattoo-artist with a machine, so debilitating he couldn't help the tears that burned his eyes. A warm, soft body pressed lush curves against his bare back, slim arms threading around him, tucking him to her, drawing him close and giving him something to rest against; a tiny silver nipple-ring distracted him long enough from his pain that he'd forgotten it the moment it disappeared, and he panted, eyes drawn again and again to that tempting little pink nipple with that exquisite, fierce little ring that brought such unexpected pleasure.

 _Giulia_ , his mind whispered, and he echoed it, "Giulia."

"It's me," she murmured, half-asleep, making soothing noises one would make to gentle a fretful child, stroking his stomach gently, just the sensation of her warm, soft hands on his _skin_ lulling him. She…was so _warm_ , her skin so soft and so fragrant. He wanted to lick her all over, and give her exquisite breasts the reverence they deserved, and thread his fingers through her beautiful soft clean hair. He wanted to be _inside_ her, he – he wanted to be over this self-inflicted _influenza_ to _talk_ with her – his two most favourite things in _centuries_. He reached up, gripping the arm she had draped around him, panting for breath and frustrated, swiping sweat from his eyes and groaning, swallowing a wave of nausea and fighting the instinct to curl into a ball – she guided him, so gently, back onto the mattress, and he sighed as his brutalised body sang with relief, stretched out on cool sheets. That tempting little ring drew his eye as Giulia leaned across him, bare-breasted, her hair smelling delicious, dried curls tumbling over her shoulders, and he tilted his head in confusion, drawn to her face, those enigmatic grey eyes…dark circles shadowed them like old bruises; she looked…exhausted. There was a flush to her cheeks, though, and to her chest, and he could smell… _her_. On him. Him all over her. Faint marks on her behind when she reached over him to draw a dish of water and a washcloth onto the bed beside him. He blinked, more of an extended droop of his eyelids that threatened sleep, never quite achieving it as his blood burned through his veins, and his vision shimmered; he panted, his breaths so shallow, something cool trickling on his brow, someone murmuring to him in a dead language, and he squinted, his vision pained, everything pained, and the timelessly handsome features of his brother swam into view.

" _You must survive this, Elijah, for Gyda's sake_. _She needs you; we all need you_ ," Willem told him, his voice heavy and laden with sorrow. Elijah gave a shuddering breath, shaking his head sharply, pushing the memory away as he started as if receiving a bad fright. Giulia gazed down at him, her expression gentle and exhausted.

He reached out, brushing his fingertips over the back of her thigh, scratching his nails lightly the way she liked, but speculatively – her eyes slid onto him for a moment, before she licked her lips and turned to her task, wringing out the washcloth to wipe him down, the water cool and surprising and delicious against his searing skin. He watched her, and touched her gently, tracing the curve of her ass with his fingertips, tickling the sole of her foot to make her start and swat playfully at his wrist; he reached up and pinched her pierced nipple, making her grin despite herself and writhe, eyes heavy-lidded for a moment before he splashed her chest with cool water from his fingertips, making her shiver and shuffle away. She tossed the washcloth at him, and he chuckled softly, wiping his face, and sighed, propping himself up against a mound of pillows, recognising that the sheets were rumpled, that flush to her face and chest could be from only one thing, that her hair was mussed and he tasted _her_ on his tongue now that the nausea had receded.

Suddenly, he swallowed, alarmingly _compos mentis_ and horrified. "G – Giulia, I…"

"What?" her smile was almost _too_ sweet, the twinkle in her tired eyes _too_ teasing. The smile turned into a smirk, as she whispered, "Did someone slip you a roofie?" He sighed, rolling his eyes, fiddling anxiously with the washcloth, aware suddenly that _he_ was totally naked – even his ring was gone, and for a heartbeat his stomach lurched, and he panicked. Giulia made a gentling noise, resting a hand on his shoulder, pressing him back against the pillows as he made to sit up. He gave up the fight instantly, exhausted. "Go easy, I've got you."

"Perhaps you should not," Elijah mumbled, wiping sweat from his brow with the washcloth. He panted softly, glancing at Giulia, almost afraid to catch her eye. He had taken her…and not even…realised it _was_ her? How…how _mortifying_.

"Why wouldn't I?" she asked, settling back, legs curled beside her.

Instead of saying what he was feeling – complete and utter embarrassment – he grasped at something that would put her in a foul mood and push her away. "I thought you were still angry with me."

"I'm not angry about Slater," Giulia murmured, sounding tired and defeated, combing her fingers through her dark hair and sending a wave of scent his way – wildflowers and pink grapefruit, and _her_ , that indescribable scent unique to Giulia alone. "I'm just… _disappointed_." That was worse. But she wasn't moving, and Elijah was just even more uncomfortable. So, next obvious form of defence.

"I may hurt you," he warned, in all seriousness. The last time he'd been bitten by a werewolf, the ensuing madness had led him to tear through a slave village, thinking it was a battlefield outside the walled fortress-city of Marseille. Rebekah had found him after the madness had waned, inconsolable in a sea of bodies, aching for his brothers so deeply he couldn't move for hours until he managed to break the weight of depression and shame that had replaced the madness, the fever.

"You haven't," she said softly. She licked her lips, drawing Elijah's eye despite himself. She glanced at him. "And I… I want to enjoy what time I get to spend with you too much to stay annoyed at you about Slater. I… _like being_ with you too much to…to let you push me away. So don't try…"

Elijah gazed at her, his chest aching. They had been playing a very dangerous game, and he had a feeling they were both losing. However much he had warned himself, he had…had _let_ this extraordinary young-woman _in_ , and he was…consumed entirely by her. Entranced, and delighted; her brilliance, and her kindness, the devious streak and her sense of humour, her creativity, and the unparalleled devotion to her Caroline, navigating the furore around her with such unyielding elegance, and her dangerous, selfless valour.

He had fallen in love with her long before they had tumbled into bed.

Three times in his life, Elijah knew he had fallen wholly, irreversibly _in love_. He knew, from the first moment he saw a woman, that he would be hers for eternity.

Torvi. Lucrezia. Giulia.

The first time he had seen Giulia in that red dress, devilish and clever and sweet, he had known. Infatuation had turned to admiration, to respect and… _love_.

Elijah did not fall in love easily, but like his father, when he did, it was fiercely, absolutely. And that love could not be broken. His heart had been broken, over and over, yet he had never fallen _out_ of love.

He was over a millennium old and still afraid to let people in. Here Giulia was, seventeen years old and more courageous about admitting what she felt and what she wanted than he had ever dared be. Torvi had persisted; Lucrezia…had brought him to _life_ again, entirely _his_ ; Giulia was extraordinary.

Here she was, embracing their inevitable end _with grace_ , determined to enjoy what time they had together, rather than mourn what she understood they could never have. There was a serenity to her in that moment, in her acceptance of an uncomfortable truth he'd rather was never uttered, for as long as it remained an ambivalence, he could evade it. He had never been fatalistic, she wasn't either; but she was too clever not to see things from different perspectives, and logically, they would never work. It was just too dangerous – if she remained human, he'd lose her; if he failed, his brother would kill her as soon as look at her to punish him, or kill him without Klaus ever knowing he had left her behind. If he reunited with his family, she would lose him; if he did not, he would be utterly destroyed, and she would lose him.

She would rather enjoy him, _them_ , now, rather than _wish_ she had, and would never wish their time away, or waste it by worrying about what she perceived as the inevitable.

"Giulia…" he whispered, looping his arm around her waist and drawing her flush to him, her breasts soft against his chest, propped up on her forearms, her curling hair fragrant and soft, her skin so deliciously warm. Those mercurial silver eyes glowed in the lamplight, smudged with shadows of exhaustion. He reached up, tracing a finger over the soft bruises, sighing. He threaded his fingers through her hair, clasping her face gently, his throat close, his voice hoarse with emotion. "Giulia…the last thing I would ever want is to be a disappointment to you… I want you to have everything you deserve." She saw the sincerity…the _love_ in his face, heard it in his voice, and leaned in to give him a tender kiss.

"Sleep, Elijah," she whispered softly against his lips, and he gazed up at her. Remembering, he shook his head slightly, physically exhausted but emotionally fired up, and he grew hard, leaning up to nip her lower-lip lightly between his teeth, drawing her tight against him.

"Not yet," he whispered back, drawing her close for a kiss. And another, and another, slow and luxuriating and powerful, consuming him, leaving her breathless, her warm, lush body draped over him. When he drew back, her eyes were heavy-lidded, her lips lush and bruised. He gave her a slow, tender kiss, gently rolling them onto their sides, Giulia tucked against him, and he hooked her knee under his hand. He heard her heartbeat, the delicious surge of blood and the accompanying scent of arousal that made his mouth water, and he dusted the tiniest kisses on her lips, nose, cheeks, jaw, murmuring, "First I shall give you the proper seeing-to you deserve." He had taken her, believing she was another woman; she'd have him again, now, blissfully and unequivocally _hers_.

He surged into her in one long, measured thrust that took her breath away, eyes clamping shut, lips parting on a breathless gasp, and he kept her knee raised to hit the angle he knew made her _his_ in mere moments, panting and writhing, whimpering, scratching his chest with her fingernails and trying to roll the hips he kept immobile while he filled her with slow, powerful thrusts that surged to hit that one delicate little bud of nerves that made her toes curl and whimper, made her back arch, shoving her breasts up, and he pinned her in place as he dipped his head to lavish her breasts with licks and kisses, drawing her delicious little pierced nipple between his lips, suckling and nibbling, sometimes delicate, sometimes giving a sharp tug, measuring his sucks and tugs to the thrust of his hips, taking care to linger over that tiny bundle of nerves, tiny delicate thrusts that caught against that little bid, building up an inferno in so short a time her body couldn't handle the overload of sensation – she came violently, sinking her teeth into his shoulder as he chuckled against her breast, smoothing his hand down her thigh to roll his hips one last time, going deep and hard, moaning against her breast as he came, leaving him panting, his entire body relaxed but for the sting of her teeth still clamped into his flesh, stifling her whimpers as she contracted violently around him. He rolled to his back, bringing her with him, clamped tight to him where she sprawled, drained, over him. They fell blissfully, deeply, inescapably asleep, Giulia plastered to his side.

He gazed unseeingly into the fire, the life-giving warmth leaving him hollow, his mead untouched as he ruminated on the soft crackle of the flames, the hiss of the logs, the gentle snuffle of Gyda sleeping with her siblings, physically tired from the harvest and emotionally wrought. He felt…hollow. Esther had tried to give him herbs, drafts to take to ease the pain, but she didn't understand – he felt no pain. He felt…nothing. Just emptiness. Longing, and sorrow – and confusion. He didn't know what to do with himself.

He might never have heard the footsteps had he slept. But sleep did not come easy, not in that bed, and he frowned, setting his cup down on the table, a hand curling loosely around the handle of his axe, unbolting his door. The full-moon illuminated everything, he could see as clear as day through the sliver he allowed to see outside. It was not wolves; he frowned, mildly curious, threw the door open and collared his youngest brother by the scruff of the neck, flinging him to the safety of his hearth and closing the door – closing, not slamming; he was careful of waking the little ones, Gunnar and Annika, still fretful and confused, missing tiny, bubbling Olle with his broad smiles and cuddles.

If Björn and Alrik learned Henrik had been allowed this far from the village by himself on a full-moon night, he would never hear the end of it. As it was, he knew Father's laws, and was shocked to discover his youngest-brother had broken the greatest of them.

No-one left the jarlshall on the night of the full-moon. It was custom for the jarl to invite villagers in outlying farmhouses to the jarlshall on such nights, for the protection of the community, the best fighting-men – and Mother's spells. The wolves did not dare approach so close as the jarlshall when the formidable witches Esther and his brother Isak worked their magic to protect their people. When the wolves were men, their allies were glad Esther and Isak took such precautions – what had begun as an alliance for their own survival had over decades turned into friendship, and no-one wanted their friends' blood on their hands. Mikael always worried it was such a delicate peace; his men were not those of compromise, and though the wolves, as men, fought more viciously and punished with more cruelty than any the old warriors had ever fought in the shield-wall during raids in the old country…those old warriors had once been young men eager to greet their friends in Valhalla, chosen by Freya's own swan-maidens from the battlefield. There had not been a war in years, and the old men were getting anxious, itching for a fight that would send them to feast eternally with the gods and the great heroes of the songs.

Their life in the old country had been harsh, and it had made harsh men. Elijah could still remember it – _cold_. Breathlessly beautiful, and it was _home_ , he could taste the salt sea of Kattegat and remembered the falls, the woods where he had apprenticed as carpenter and shipbuilder – before Mikael had killed the jarl, and become one himself. He remembered the great jarlshall, the celebrations, and he remembered… He remembered _her_. Dark-haired and wild, young and ferocious in the shield-wall – she had saved his life, once; her _gentleness_ and – taking her to _bed_. He had thought her a fierce warrior in battle; in bed, she was more so. Gyda had not appeared until they had crossed the seas, but they had worked hard for her for several years. And following swiftly after her had come Björn and Alrik, Gunnar and Annika, little smiling Olle, no longer sleeping curled up with four-year-old Annika. His last child, a son, had been stillborn, and it was the effort to deliver him that finally defeated fierce, loving Torvi.

Elijah swallowed, stark emptiness shooting through him. He frowned at Henrik, cringing guiltily. Rebekah's influence over him was noticeable, still managing to look stubborn and annoyed despite having been caught. This was his thirteenth summer, and he had shot up half a foot in the last few months, wiry and awkward, not a boy anymore but still too gangly to be taken for a man.

"Father will have you flogged for disobeying him," Elijah said quietly, wandering over to the fire. Henrik sighed impatiently.

"Niklaus has snuck out again," he scowled, "to see that _slave_ girl." Elijah made a quiet noise; he knew the girl Henrik meant, and wasn't surprised. She was one of the prettier slaves, daughter of a Native slave early after they had settled this land and made alliances with the local tribe, the people who turned into wolves every full-moon. Their shaman's story of their origins, their _curse_ , made him shiver.

"Aren't you upset Niklaus has broken Father's law?" Henrik asked, with the indignation of youth.

"It will not be the first time Niklaus has snuck out to see this girl," Elijah said unconcernedly. If Niklaus wished to risk his own neck to bed this girl, so be it. Niklaus knew Father's laws just as everyone did, and would not be exempt to punishment were he caught. That he hadn't been so far made Elijah believe this was not Niklaus' first moonlit outing to see the slave-girl Tatia.

Henrik sat quietly for a while, frowning at Elijah. He blurted, " _Why_? Why does he risk Father's punishment to see her?" Elijah smiled softly to himself, watching his youngest-brother. In many ways he was still a boy, for all he was sprouting whiskers on his face to show he was becoming a man. Björn was very jealous of those whiskers, few and faint as they were. Elijah had promised his would come in thicker and darker than his young uncle's, taking after both his dark-haired parents. The hair on Henrik's head was dark, like Father's, and curling, like Mother's – he had their fair eyes, though, and the younger girls in the village liked to chase him.

"You will understand, one day," Elijah promised him. Niklaus believed himself _in love_ – Elijah recognised it for what it was, _lust_. Tatia was considered prettier than Rebekah, even, a dangerous whisper if volatile Rebekah ever heard it, but she was a slave, still – any free man could take her whenever they wished, and they did. She had been passed around and offered herself to any man she took a fancy to, and all but Elijah himself and his brothers Finn and Willem had declined; Willem had no favourites, but Finn… Finn's love for that girl was true; Elijah knew this, because his brother felt pain every time he saw Niklaus flirting with the slave-girl. She dandled both brothers – one for the security she knew in being bedded, and one for the deep, honest, terrifying _love_ she had never received before. Whether she felt any true feelings for either of them, that was another matter: she fucked Niklaus, and everyone knew it. But she could not understand why Finn would not bed her – Elijah believed Niklaus had little to do with Finn's hesitation; he wanted to marry her before he bedded her. They already knew she could bear him strong children; she had delivered other warriors several sons since she was old enough to be bedded.

Henrik exhaled a soft hiss. "You mean he likes to bed her," he said, and Elijah raised an eyebrow at his youngest brother.

"Yes," he answered simply, hiding a smile.

"Why risk a flogging to bed a slave?" Henrik frowned.

"Why, indeed," Elijah sighed. They both knew Father's laws. He was fairly certain Niklaus had been neglecting his duties around the fields to take her in the woods; surely it could wait until sunrise? In the bed, Alrik snorted and twitched, shifting beside Gunnar, reminding Elijah that his young brother ought to be in bed also. He stood, plucked Henrik from his stool by the shoulder of his tunic, gave him a sharp clip round the ear for disobedience and sent him to bed.

"To bed. Mother will know you are missing; I should rather have her find you tucked in bed here than chasing after shadows on the full-moon," Elijah said honestly; Mother would cast a spell to seek Henrik when she noticed him missing. She always noticed. One by one her children had grown, Elijah and Lagertha had started families of their own, he and Finn farmed the same land as partners, Isak and Willem lived together, and somehow Mother was left now with beautiful, stubborn young Rebekah and Henrik, her last-born. Drifting between all of them was enthusiastic but aimless Niklaus, not trusted by Father with any responsibility and therefore, acting without any whatsoever. He did what he wanted. Father disliked Niklaus at the jarlshall, concerned by his dependence on Rebekah, and their closeness.

Elijah and Finn had never told Father about finding Rebekah with her skirts around her waist with one of the village boys, or that Willem had heard whispers about Rebekah hiding a certain slave under her skirts… He sighed. Elijah had never told anyone he had discovered Rebekah with a different lover in the woods, legs shaking as she was pressed up against a tree, letting him take her – something about his disappointment in her had gotten through to Rebekah in a way none of Father's beatings or Mother's cold silence ever could. He had beaten the wolf-boy, though, for having her – he was known as a level-headed young warrior, grounded by his first full-moon; Rebekah was the tempestuous, the impulsive one, he had no trouble believing it had been Rebekah's idea. She saw too much of Isak, Willem and Niklaus' irresponsibility regarding their lovers. Elijah had had little to do with Rebekah being raised; Gyda had arrived mere months after her, and his and Torvi's world had become her.

He watched Henrik climb into bed with the other children, Gyda's beautiful features becoming drawn as she shifted and wriggled uncomfortably, and settled with a sigh that smoothed the frown away. Elijah wondered what she dreamed, and turned away, exhaustion pressing on his shoulders. They would continue gathering the crops, and he did not want to be out in the sun too long.

He rubbed his face, ready to curl up with Torvi, and was startled when he turned to the bed, finding it empty. He kept forgetting.

The memory of that bed, of glassy-eyed Torvi sprawled across it, her belly bulging, blood soaking her dress and the blankets, made him flinch, shivering, and he choked as another image flooded his mind, of another woman, with curling dark hair, propped up on bolsters and cushions, dazed, devastatingly pale, her wan cheeks tearstained, blood soaking her thighs, she looked… _dead_ – he glanced down, his breaths coming sharp and short and panicked, taking a deep breath at the sight of the squashed, bruised little creature in his arms, bit his thumb and inserted the tip into the tiny baby's mouth, breathing a sigh of relief as the bruising to his shoulder and tiny chest faded. He squalled, finally, hiccoughed and opened tiny eyes, sticking out a tiny tongue. On the grand, carved bed with its frame draped with heavy jacquard, the bed in which this child had been conceived on a night Elijah would never forget despite the wine, Lucrezia stirred, her heartbeat getting stronger as she struggled to rise from the bolster, gasping, reaching for the tiny baby – a boy. Elijah cleaned him gently with warm water, smiling to himself as he noted the fine dark hair on the boy's head, how he quieted, blinking and writhing in Elijah's arms as his mother cooed for him, near-death as she was, eyes filled with tears, her expression devastated and entranced at once.

There was nothing to experiencing a mother seeing her child for the first time, and Elijah forced away tears of relief with a rough swipe of his hand, choking a shaky laugh, passing Lucrezia her son. She did not seem to notice how weak she was, how close to death – Elijah had almost forgotten the child as her heartbeat weakened and stopped for several breathless moments. The sound of his cries had roused her, glancing around, reaching out as if she was missing something, searching. Lucrezia took the tiny bundle, shocked and wholly, irrevocably in love, tears splashing down her cheeks, and she shifted on the bed, gazing down; she let out a shaky gasp, tore the neck of her dress and breathed a sigh of relief as the boy latched on, her face a mask of serenity for a moment as she glanced down, cradling her new son to her chest as he fed from delectably swollen breasts, until she grimaced, moaning softly, a hand going to her belly. The other.

She glanced up, catching Elijah's eye, and she allowed her utter terror to show. Gasping in pain, she clutched her son to her left breast, and Elijah pushed aside his feelings – she was allowed to be terrified; one of them had to keep calm. He swallowed his dread, but it showed on his face as she bit her lip, gasping her breaths, and he had to arrange her legs, feet propped at the edge of the bed, knees wide. He lifted his eyes to Lucrezia's, and she knew. She sniffed, dried her eyes, clutched her son to her, and breathed out in a slow, calming breath, before nodding. He had to manoeuvre the second child, born the same way as Gunnar, arse-first.

For a brief moment, sorrow at Esther's loss threatened to take over, devastated. She could handle this so elegantly, she had been known for it; mothers went to her when their instincts told them something was wrong. She had helped save every child but Lagertha's.

Lucrezia had only Elijah, refusing anyone else. And she had taken a vow from him, a dagger to his throat before he had to reach in and free the little boy. He would do _whatever_ was necessary to bring these children into the world, because she knew, with that mother's instinct, that she would need his help.

This required his mother's delicate, deft touch, not his unnaturally-strong soldier's hands. But it was those Lucrezia trusted, and Elijah could no sooner break his word to her than die. She was consciously _not_ pushing, as he delicately unhooked the tiny legs. Tenderly turned the dainty body, listening to but not allowing himself to be distracted by the sound of Lucrezia's pain; he draped a warm cloth over the tiny body, doing as Lucrezia had instructed him should this happen – she had taught him many things, including how to cut the child free, where and how deeply he had to cut, every scenario accounted for in the terror she hid so well from everyone else.

A father to seven children, pulling each into the world himself, Elijah had never experienced a more harrowing delivery.

"Push, my love," he whispered, and she did, her expression pained, breathless, clutching her son to her, now asleep, a tiny fist curled by his face. The child came free, and Lucrezia groaned in relief, swaying. She caught herself, retreating to the pillows, cuddling on her left side with the greatest love of her life, and he let her go, too concerned with the child in his arms; he had clamped and cut the cord, now gently massaging and washing the infant – a tiny girl – waiting. And waiting. Lucrezia's lips moved on a soundless moan, the afterbirth delivered, glazed eyes turned to Elijah, seeking.

The baby did not breathe. Neither did Lucrezia, her silver eyes sharp on the baby in his arms.

She reached out a bloody hand, and Elijah, grief-stricken, nestled the tiny girl against her chest, her eyes bright, sparkling with tears as she curled a hand around her. Beside the tiny girl, her twin squirmed and sneezed softly, eyes slitting open, and he yawned, before letting out his first wail. It seemed to frighten the tiny girl into life – her heartbeat surged and she let out an answering scream.

Elijah stumbled against the bed, relief sweeping through him, and Lucrezia choked on a grateful gasp, clutching the tiny girl to her as she wailed. Content that his sister was well, the tiny boy nuzzled his mother's breast, and was given a nipple gratefully; the little girl proved to possess strong lungs, crying out. Lucrezia gazed down at her, shifted her until she touched her brother, and suddenly she sighed, accepting a nipple, suckling contentedly.

Lucrezia gazed at him, exhausted, recovering from being delirious with terror, clutching her children to her, tears leaking slowly down her cheeks. He climbed onto the bed, ignoring the mess for a moment, to curl up with Lucrezia, who gazed at him with so much _love_ , his chest ached, allowing everything he had squashed – because she needed him, needed him strong and able to do what she could not – and cradled her face, his hand shaking with emotion so strong it still terrified him, resting his forehead against hers.

"Now we are a family," she whispered, and Elijah moaned softly and stole a deep kiss, wrapping his arm around her – around _them_.

* * *

 **A.N.** : You didn't expect this, did you?!


	30. Creation

**A.N.** : In celebration of this being the thirtieth chapter of _Dangerous Beauty_ , I give to you Elijah.

* * *

 **Dangerous Beauty**

 _Chapter 30_

 _Creation_

* * *

They were all exhausted, the yield from this summer's crops more than they dared hope for, but his back ached, sweat blinded him, and the sun had seared his skin. Even his armband was warm to touch, and more than anything he wished Torvi were there to click her tongue, smiling, and tie his hair up off the back of his neck. She would tease him, reminded of their youth, when he had kept his hair shorn. It had been a long time since he had fought in the shield-wall; his younger siblings had no concept of war, even Willem and Niklaus had never killed a man, not even in skirmishes.

The harvest would keep them through the winter, and Elijah was glad; Esther got the sense this was going to be a hard one. And when Esther got a feeling about something, they listened. Even she could not portend what the future held; she used to tell them, all they could do was prepare as best they were able.

" _Elijah_!" someone bellowed, and he heard a scream, Gyda's. Grip tightening on his sickle, he darted forward, lighter on his feet than anyone used to believe, and fast. Small bodies swarmed toward him as he ran toward the forest bordering one of his fields, his children fleeing a tall figure staggering out of the trees. Elijah stumbled a step when the trees shaded his eyes, and he realised who it was; Niklaus. It took a little while to realise what he was seeing; Niklaus carried something that had bloodied his tunic. But whatever – _who_ ever it was, Elijah could not tell. Not immediately, not from such distance; but with a numbing dread, he knew….he _knew_ … The embroidery on the cuffs of the tunic was Mother's work. The dark curls, drenched with blood. The narrow, wiry frame not yet reaching maturity. It was Henrik.

Or…what was _left_ of him. His tunic was slashed, deep claw-marks rending the flesh beneath, white bone gleaming in the sun, shattered, and his stomach turned. Elijah had fought in the shield-wall alongside his father and eldest brothers, had witnessed carnage… He took a step back, swallowing bile as he realised something had…had _eaten_ his brothers innards, savaged his face so he was unrecognisable.

Henrik was dead.

Niklaus' face was stricken, bloodless, his blonde hair matted with sweat and dirt and blood. He staggered, mindless with shock, tripping to his knees; Henrik dislodged onto the tall grasses, and Elijah stared.

Only the stir of the grasses brought him back to himself, and the noise Gyda made at the sight of Henrik, like a wounded animal. He blinked, gazing back at her as if just seeing her for the first time. He squinted at her in the sun, little and slim, wearing one of Torvi's dresses – they did not waste anything. Her expression…was not what it should have been. Not horrified, stricken, desolated – she looked bright-eyed, but there was a grim set to her mouth he realised she had learned from him, her features otherwise perfectly still, composed. He reached out, aware his fingers trembled, and touched her cheek.

"Mother will have felt it," he said softly. She used to say a mother always knows; Esther had felt it. Elijah knew she had. "We must get him into the house. Keep your brothers and sister outside – into the shade, when it becomes too hot. Keep them quiet; do not attract the jarl's attention." Gyda nodded, producing an old wool blanket, which she draped over Henrik. Elijah's voice had a bite to it he did not recognise when he said coldly, "Niklaus, pick up your brother. Carry him to the house. And you will explain to Father what you have done."

"I didn't – but I – I had no idea he was out there…" Niklaus pleaded breathlessly.

"He followed you to bring you back to the jarlshall," Elijah said sharply. He swallowed, glancing down at Henrik on the grass. The wolves had killed him; but he had snuck out of the jarlshall – had disappeared from Elijah's homestead before the dawn woke him – to bring his thoughtless older-brother back, rather than let him risk Father's punishment. He made Niklaus carry their youngest-brother to his home.

It was odd what memories death brought. He did not dwell on Torvi, strangely, but on _Freyja_. The sister they had lost in Kattegat. It was her funeral pyre, his mother's grief at her loss, that swept over him like a crushing wave. Beautiful, magical like their mother, on the cusp of womanhood, betrothed to marry…taken from them in a plague that had ravaged the town while the fighting men were away to the east. Freyja's death had prompted his parents to seek a new home for their other children, and more had come of it, Willem born first, then Niklaus and Father's beloved Rebekah, and lastly…Henrik.

This was the place where Mother's children were supposed to be safe.

Esther's grief was beyond words, stoic and devastating.

* * *

The funeral pyre still burned in the dusk, embers glowing in the gathering dark as Father's men dragged a young woman to the pillory, a scaffolding used mostly to punish slaves. But occasionally, to mete out the jarl's justice. A sheet of glossy dark hair rippled as the slim figure of a young woman thrashed, bucking and afraid. Niklaus barely stirred, lashed to the pillory, face and body bruised from the beating that had almost killed him – Elijah and Finn had had to pull Father off him, his rage so strong. One final kick to the face had sent Niklaus sprawling at Elijah's hearth, unconscious; he had woken bound, being dragged back to the village by one of Elijah's bison. Another had wheeled Henrik's body on a cart Elijah had built. Rebekah had been so distraught, Gyda had helped Esther prepare him for the funeral. She was getting too used to dressing her dead loved ones for their funeral pyres. Elijah could still picture her, lovingly washing and braiding Torvi's long hair, always so clever with her braids.

The jarl was meting out justice - all the villagers, and those from outlying farms, had come to the town to watch Henrik's funeral pyre burn. He had been loved. And in the uncertainty of Henrik's death – they all knew it was the wolves, but until Mikael strode out of the jarlshall, they did not know why Henrik had been out in the forest on the full-moon.

With each strike of the lash, they cried out in pain. Niklaus, and Tatia the slave-girl. Elijah's eyes were on his brother, beaten half to death already; he fell unconscious forty lashes in, sagging, upright only because of the bonds. Swollen, bruised, Mikael must have broken something, and blood seeped down his legs, pooling on the ground at his feet.

The girl lasted longer, stripped naked and flogged just as viciously, her hair parted over her shoulders covering her breasts, her face shining with tears and sweat, and her legs shook visibly; her back shone with blood, and somewhere young children stifled sobs.

The air was thick with the scent of ash and blood, cloying and unsettling. Elijah shifted, glancing first at Gyda, who watched stony-faced with her siblings clutching her hands until their knuckles shone white in the dusk, eyes wide. Annika had her face tucked against his leg, sucking her thumb and he reached down, stroking her curling brown hair gently to soothe her. He glanced to his other side, where his brothers crowded around, beautiful Lagertha's expression so grim, and he frowned subtly to himself as he glanced at Finn, and down at his clenched fist – Finn clutched the blade of one of his smaller daggers, blood dripping slowly to the ground.

Elijah sighed to himself, turning back to watch as Tatia's body sagged, released from the pain of her flogging by unconsciousness. Finn held the blade of his dagger rather than risk making things far worse by trying to interfere; they all knew better.

Mikael would not kill Niklaus, or the slave-girl. He would beat Niklaus, he would never forgive him, or forget, but the jarl would allow these two lawbreakers to live _only_ because it was in his mercy to spare their lives – and their lives were worth everything, two strong, young bodies, one a fighting man and the other, a strong woman able to bear children. They were a small colony; they did not waste. Lives were precious. Mikael respected that, no matter how devastated he was.

What worried them all most was not Niklaus' recovery. Unforgiving of him for Henrik's death as she was, Esther would still provide him with salves and potions to ease his pain and aid his healing.

* * *

The night Niklaus and Tatia had been flogged, Elijah's greatest worry had been the fragile peace they had been nurturing for decades. His father the jarl shared the same dread – and his warriors were not men of compromise. They had demanded Henrik's death be answered with blood. The wolves'. Stoic in her grief, Esther had tried her utmost, Father had forbidden retaliation; but the men had been too long without a good fight, and too quickly, too easily, Henrik's death had escalated into a brutal, bitter war. Some of Father's men had slaughtered a family in a nearby village; their warriors retaliated; the Vikings had ambushed their neighbours. Blood demanded blood, and more and more of it flowed. It felt again like Elijah's youth, the first winters he and the other settlers had waged war against the native men. They were no longer at the same disadvantage, though, and they and the wolves had suffered equally heavy losses.

He had almost forgotten what it was like to be at war in his own home. The shield-wall was different, they went and raided others' homes; he and Torvi had fought side-by-side, shared equally the spoils, and memories of the bed-sport while the bloodlust still fired their veins kept him warm. They had not had their children, then. He had never known a parents' fear, until the first of the farmers had been discovered, mutilated in their neighbours' custom. Not all the Native men were wolves, but they were warriors still; and they were merciless. They had taken the children as slaves; Father's warriors had taken up arms, brutalising whoever crossed their paths, reclaiming them, taking slaves of their own, brutalising them. Elijah had not seen such behaviour since the Eastern raids of his youth. Mikael had always said he would not tolerate such behaviour in his own earldom. Most days Elijah had kept his children indoors; Isak had used magic to help with the harvest. It was the most important thing; they could not abandon the crops or none of them would survive the winter regardless of the fighting.

He shuddered, writhing in pain, breathless and utterly weak. The house smelled smoky and sweet, he was choked with warmth, the amber glow of a fire burning high, the scent of herbs and flowers strong and he coughed, writhing, rolling to his side to vomit feebly on the ground. A strong hand patted his back, helping him expel it all, and he groaned, collapsing where he had rolled.

"Elijah," a vaguely familiar voice murmured, gently rolling him to his back. Short dark hair falling into grey eyes, his brother's sharp features coming into focus as he groaned. "Elijah, you must fight this fever. Gyda needs you. She cannot be left utterly alone." Elijah moaned, eyes watering despite how thirsty his body seemed, working tirelessly with Gyda to tend to his children, the strongest failing first, brutally fast, horrifying illness that caused bleeding, vomiting, madness, little Gunnar and Annika crying feebly in his arms as they faded. Finn had helped, until he fell ill; tending to him had pushed Gyda too far, and she shivered and bled from her nose, curled on her side against the cramps in her stomach, beside Finn, on the verge of death. Delirious with hunger and pain, Elijah vaguely wondering how Willem had escaped the plague that had savaged their village as the leaves turned to amber and ferocious red, stunning. Torvi had always loved the changing leaves, the creeper that had grown up the walls of their homestead. He smelled something delicious – broth from one of his bison, fresh-butchered to cure for the winter, and clutched the blood-bag greedily to his mouth, humming with delight. He twitched, Willem's blonde shining hair replaced with Giulia's lustrous espresso waves, her pale face glowing in the dark, and he tossed the empty bag aside, grabbed her by her waist and heaved her against him like a child, shaking like a leaf, needing her.

* * *

He blinked sweat out of his eyes, and flinched as he dodged an arrow, smoke in his eyes and screams echoing on the winter air, wolves howling as the maddened beasts flung themselves again and again against the mystical boundary Esther, Isak and Kol had created, but the warriors who were not wolves had scaled the forest of wolfsbane plants Mother had drawn out of the earth, covering the jarlshall entirely as the villagers screamed and ran for its safety. Most of their best fighting-men were dead of the plague; Esther's sacrifice of several slaves had lifted the shaman's curse, but too late. All of his children but Gyda had gone to join their mother. Elijah himself was still weakened; but he would fight with a berserker's rage to protect the one joy he had left, his little girl, his Gyda.

Shield battered, soaked in blood, he and his brothers and Lagertha defended the food-stores to get them through the winter; Mother, Isak and Kol had made the jarlshall impenetrable. They were defending their territory, their home, their very right to survive the winter – Elijah had not fought so brutally since the very first months of their settlement, staggered by the brutality of their new enemies. The smoke in his eyes and chest, a wound to his leg, blood and sweat dripping into his eyes, the taste of it in his mouth, he growled and lodged his axe deep into the breastbone of a man he recognised, ducking an arrow and throwing another attacker off him with a precise swing of his shield, blood spattering his face. The clash of weapons rang through the village, one homestead engulfed in flames that illuminated everything, casting Loki's tricky shadows everywhere. He heard Lagertha screaming in rage, a bellow from Willem, glimpsed Lagertha sprawl backwards, blood spraying from torn leathers, heard her land heavily, wetly, on the muddy ground, slick beneath their feet. Willem groaned, rising to his feet, and it was the flames, or a trick of the light, or the true berserkrage of their ancestors, but Elijah saw his brother's brilliant blue eyes glow an unnatural amber in the firelight, huge and monstrous and pure _Viking_ , muscled and ferocious, his blonde hair matted with others' blood, seething with rage as he hacked down the man who had injured Lagertha, and chased down another, slicing his head clean off as he advanced on Finn, his back turned as he fought another Native. Elijah glanced around, hoisted a spear from a fallen friend, and hurled it fifty feet easily, pinning Finn's attacker right through the heart. The axe and spear were Elijah's forte – no-one could out-throw him with either, with more strength or accuracy. Not even Willem, the strongest and most martial of them, who was savaging a dead corpse with more rage than Elijah had ever seen, even from Father.

He shouted, running over to Lagertha, who stirred and moaned softly, her eyes glinting in the firelight as a soft rain he had not noticed misted her face.

Hours later, Lagertha winced as Mother applied a salve of dried herbs and honey to the wound she had healed as best she could with magic. Healing magic was tricky, and exhausting; Mother rationed out spells to heal them, knowing they were stronger for the scars. Kol was less partisan; he had always disliked pain, the only one among them who truly embraced his heritage as a witch, rather than a Viking warrior, dark-eyed and with a wicked sense of humour, he claimed to be Loki's distant relative, he caused – and got away with – so much trouble. He said his strength was his spells, and Mikael agreed. There were more ways to protect their people than with a sword and shield.

Gyda sat cuddled up to Elijah, quiet and withdrawn, but affectionate. Elijah looped an arm around her, resting his cheek against the top of her head, the scent of her soft dark hair comforting.

"You did not pick up your shield, Gyda," Lagertha said wonderingly, glancing at her niece. Lagertha had been unlucky in her own children, too, had lost a daughter in childhood, her last child to miscarriage, and her son in an ambush. She would not remarry, no matter how bitterly she and Father fought on the matter; she would rather draw on Freyja's martial aspect now that her role as mother had forsaken her. When her own sweet, smiling girl had died, she had wandered over to Elijah's home with Torvi, handed little Gyda a plain shield, and started teaching her how to use it. Lagertha's helplessness in keeping her own daughter alive had compelled her to try and ensure Elijah's own had every means of survival at her disposal.

"There is no-one left to protect," Gyda murmured hollowly from beneath him. Elijah's jaw tightened, and he pressed a kiss to her fragrant hair, hiding how his eyes burned. Lagertha watched them, her beautiful blue eyes glittering in the firelight, tired and shadowed, her features splattered with blood, her blonde hair a riot of chain-threaded braids and her vibrant eyes flitted to Elijah's face. What was there to say to that?

Lagertha's sharp eyes found Rebekah, and Elijah stifled a sigh, knowing what would come next. Lagertha's voice, so gentle and coaxing with Gyda, sharpened like the edge of a blade, cool as steel. "I noticed you did not reach for a weapon, Rebekah."

Their sister and now last-surviving younger sibling glanced over, tending to Niklaus, whose eyebrow had split in a skirmish inside the jarlshall. He had been more belligerent and quick to lash out since his flogging, and in the shadows Tatia rested meekly with the other slaves, surrounded by her remaining children. Elijah saw Finn's eyes darting frequently to her; his feelings had changed toward her since Henrik's death, but Finn would not leave her – leave her innocent children – to be butchered, not when he had the strength to stop it. Niklaus, Rebekah – they had both hidden inside the safety of the jarlshall, the witches working within to protect their warriors outside. Mother had safeguarded their food but if they did not cut down their enemies now, they would only return, and scouts – Mother's eagles – had reported disturbing things; meetings between their neighbours and some of their ancestral enemies. Mikael, a farmer by blood as well as jarl, a title he had taken when he had killed the previous one, a greedy, frightened man, always said it was worth more effort to pluck the weed than let it spread, no matter how backbreaking the work.

"I don't need a weapon," Rebekah said, a stubborn tilt to her chin. "You protect us."

"And when we lie slain in the mud?" Lagertha asked, her voice like ice breaking. "What lies between your thighs will not save you." Father reached out, clipping Lagertha round the ear, but he gave Rebekah the kind of withering look they had all received at least once in their lives – that _contempt_. His open, aggressive disdain was usually reserved for Niklaus, but Lagertha had touched a sore spot: Rebekah had none of their mother's magic, and yet she refused to pick up a shield. But she was stubborn, and preferred fishing and picking Mother's herbs to anything else. Except handsome, inappropriate young men with a touch of danger.

That looked made Rebekah shrink, her stubborn chin dropping, her eyes lowering to the ground, a flush to her cheeks. Father was the only one who could put Rebekah in her place; she had grown up spoiled, never asked to do too much. She was the jarl's daughter; that was her role. She had never had to fight for anything the way he, Lagertha and Finn had. She had been _given_ everything.

And that caused friction between the girls – between sisters Lagertha and much-younger Rebekah, and between aunt and niece, Rebekah and Gyda, two girls born months apart and yet so different. Their hearts were fashioned differently, Gyda strong and steady-minded, selfless, kind, Rebekah jealous, flighty and entitled, thoughtless, often petty. When they fought, which was not often, but remarkable, Elijah and Kol had had to pull them off each other – Kol would have been happy to watch, pelting them with stones to aggravate them further, but at Elijah's glower he had stepped in with a flick of his fingertips. Esther had healed Rebekah; Gyda had scoffed, striding off and wiping her bloody lip. What little vanity she had was made up for in Rebekah.

He glanced at Lagertha, pushing a lock of chain-braided hair over her shoulder, unconcerned by Father swatting her ear. She had survived worse injuries in the shield-wall, and paid no more attention to Father's slap than she would a fly.

* * *

They all watched the flames, quiet, exhausted. Isak jigged his knee, a sure sign his mind was racing. Elijah tried to ignore him; they had enjoyed a rare peace the last few days, he did not need to let Isak's impatience irritate him into spoiling the evening. The fire hissed and crackled peacefully, they shared mead, bread and cheese, Finn dozing gently, hands clasped loosely on his stomach, his legs outstretched and eyes closed.

"By the gods, Isak, what is the matter with you?" he sighed finally, frowning at his brother.

"Mother's behaviour concerns me," Isak admitted, scowling at the flames.

"More than usual?" Kol's eyebrows rose, taking a huge swallow of mead.

"Yes, more than usual. She does not use her herbs and spells," Isak frowned, and now the other brothers did, too, Willem's frown gentle, punting Finn with his foot to wake him. "To keep away old age."

"Perhaps she has forgotten to cast them," Finn said fairly, rubbing his face tiredly.

"Mother does not forget anything," Willem said quietly, gazing into his cup with a forlorn expression. Willem had never been close with either of their parents, though Niklaus was the least-liked of all their children. They loved Willem a great deal more than Niklaus, whom all of them but Rebekah tolerated rather than liked. Willem, they adored; he was a clever, generous man.

"She is saving her magic for some reason," Isak frowned. "I just wish I could learn what. She does not share with us." He indicated Kol, her favourite student. Intuitive, and creative, Esther said Kol had known more about magic by his tenth summer than she had by her fortieth. Though she looked young, Esther had lived longer than anyone in the village. Magic kept her strong, young, kept her able to help those who needed her. To watch over her family.

A knock on his door made Elijah rise; it could be Gyda back from the jarlshall. It wasn't; Father stood on his threshold.

"Father."

"Elijah."

"Father, come in," Finn said, rising from the table, leaving his seat vacant for their father, who nodded, ducking inside, and produced a skin of Mother's mead. He sat down with an exhausted sigh, leaving Willem to pour out measures of the special mead, and for a while they sat, and drank, relaxed and tired. They did not talk of the war, ongoing, or of their losses. The ghosts of Torvi, of Henrik and Gunnar and little Annika, of Björn and Alrik roughhousing outside, Olle gurgling from his cradle, grabbing his feet, drifted around Elijah's home, catching the firelight, glimpses of memory left to torment him. He felt their loss every waking moment, and dreamed of them. Only Gyda drew him from his sleep, when the cold tempted him to remain under his furs, rather than face another grim day without his family, a day of meetings in the jarlshall and squabbles between Rebekah and Gyda, whom he had found yesterday, buckling under the weight of her silent sobs. He had taken her in his arms and cried, stroking her hair.

Mother's mead was stronger than even he was used to; Kol dozed against his table, and Willem looked, for the first time in months, content. It was Isak who alerted him to something…being _wrong_. He had sipped his mead, eyes never leaving their father, who stared into the fire as if lulled by its heat, drawn to the flames, unusually for him, twitching, never still, as though distracted. The hoot of an owl, a coyote's shivering howl, the rustle of mice over the straw rushes. Isak's eyes were sharp, a slight frown on his face, never leaving their father's face. Without his lips moving, without looking at Elijah, he heard his brother's voice in his head, a whisper. Telling him to pick up his axe.

He woke, flinching, panic settling in, believing his home to be alight. Had the Natives attacked again? They had been drinking Mother's mead… Heat blazed from a fire that burned too bright, it pained his eyes, and…he felt…wrong, he…remembered.

Remembered the chaos, the confusion – Mikael's unnatural speed, his _strength_ , swatting Willem aside, driving his sword through Kol's heart, and they had _fought_. Tried to fight – Elijah had thought Willem suffered berserkrage the night their village had been attacked; he was nothing to Mikael, awing and terrifying, nothing they had ever experienced, _too_ strong, _too_ fast, he seemed to anticipate their moves, fending off Elijah, Willem _and_ Finn, only slowed down by Isak and his magic – he had sensed something was wrong the moment Father entered the house.

His hip throbbed where Mikael's sword had rend through him, he gazed around blearily, and his jaw ached. He flinched as a coyote howled mournfully, he could _see_ the sound, he had to shield his eyes from the fire – burning normally in the hearth, Kol's lifeless form draped haphazardly where he had fallen, tunic soaked with blood where Mikael's sword had penetrated his heart so effortlessly. Elijah groaned, pushing himself off the blood-soaked ground, amazed he could even move – even if he felt _wrong_ , Elijah knew his body, he knew he was _healed_. Everything was too much – the heat of the fire, his confusion, the rustle of tiny mice over the rushes – he staggered, awed that he could hear tiny frantic heartbeats, he pressed his hands over his ears, squinting his eyes in the brilliance from the fire, seeing his home with new eyes, vibrancy awing him, colours were stronger, the glow of the polished wood he had carved shone in hues he had never seen before, he could _smell_ – blood. He could smell a strand of Torvi's hair caught on the woven headboard; a wild-cat marking its territory deep in the forest; the cornbread starting to moulder. Gyda's scent was overwhelming, her brothers' and sister's faint, but he could smell…their deaths. He flinched, sneezing, and lurched away from the bed his children had shared, and where they had died. _Gyda_.

He paused only to see that Willem and Finn's mortal injuries had _healed_. Willem's glassy blue eyes blazed in the light of the fire, stronger and deeper than Elijah had ever known them, Finn's dark hair shone with a hundred different colours, and their _blood_ … His jaw ached, his teeth throbbing, and he stumbled out of the house. He gasped, a shuddering, heartbroken, awed sound; in the light of the moon he could see _everything_. Glancing up, he could have become lost in the sea of stars burning so brightly. He never knew the night had colour. A hunter, when necessity dictated, as much as farmer and warrior, Elijah was used to the night, prime hunting time. But he had never known it to be so _alive_ in the heart of winter. The ice beneath his feet crackled like a sapling breaking in high wind as he stepped, making him jump; he panted, confused, overwhelmed, but entranced, as the scent of winter drifted up to him from that broken ice, reminding him inexplicably of Kattegat and the great snows, of his first home with Torvi – and his heart broke, leaving him utterly disconsolate as he stood in the glow of the moonlight and innumerable stars, remembering their bed with its wattle headboard and furs he had cured himself, hunting with Finn. They had killed a bear that winter, oh, his pelt had been beautiful. And _warm_.

He did not feel cold. He could _see_ the ice forming on cobwebs, the scent of the winter was heavy on his tongue, and his teeth ached as he picked up the scent of…warmth. Bodies. His neighbours; he gave their farmhouse a startled look, and broke into a jog, running away from the confusion, no weapon on his person, heading for the village. Running headlong to the jarlshall, to Gyda. His only surviving child, his one joy. She always had been, and he stumbled, crippled by a wave of emotion that hit him like an anvil, sending him to his knees as grief and heartbreak paralysed him, choking on raw emotion.

Gyda's face flashed through his mind, and he latched onto it, pushed himself up from the ice-crusted ground, and ran. To the jarlshall, still protected with wolfsbane plants, beautifully carved, the largest building in the village, and a streak of annoyance shot through him like a spear. He had helped Father build it, and now he could see the flaws plain as day. His hands itched to correct them, but he stifled the urge to go back for his tools as one particular scent shot through him, obliterating everything else, every other sense. He homed in on that one scent. Gyda.

Her _blood_.

He barrelled into the jarlshall, illuminated with beeswax candles and the enormous hearth, and his world shattered. The firelight, near-blinding him, glowed strong and hot over Lagertha, her body broken, her eyes open and glassy as blood soaked the carpets beneath her, her sword shattered into pieces. Beyond the hearth, blonde hair glittered like gold in the firelight, Rebekah's finest dress glowing in the light, blood spattered down her throat, which had been slit to the bone, tears still glittering on her cheeks. He stumbled over Lagertha, crawling, unable to walk as grief and horror and heartbreak buried him, finally reaching her, finally touching a hand to Gyda, her body still and cold, blood congealed around her, her dress ripped where a sword had torn through her like soft cheese, collarbone to navel, through the shield strapped to her arm, shattered into pieces, the familiar aroma of sawdust sharp on the air with the heady tang of blood, the shield Elijah had carved for Lagertha as a gift obliterated. Gyda lay dead in a pool of her own blood, broken shield strapped to her arm, axe still gripped in her hand, her dark eyes unseeing as she gazed at the rafters.

But she _had_ picked up her shield – her aunt's shield, when Lagertha had finally, for the first time, been defeated.

He sobbed, drawing Gyda's head into his lap.

"She fought like a Valkyrie," a voice said softly. There was no boasting in the voice, no sneer. Elijah choked, eyes blinded by tears, defensively clutching Gyda tighter to him, gazing horrified at his father, who was sat – had been sat? – at the table, watching him. His siblings', his daughter's blood splattered him, soaked his hands. When his pale eyes rested on Elijah, on Gyda dead in his arms, there was nothing in Mikael's lined face but _pride_. Pure, undiluted _pride_.

"When Lagertha fell, she did not hesitate for a moment," Mikael said softly. "Even seeing as great a warrior as Lagertha cut down, she picked up her axe. She was not afraid; she fought viciously. She defended Rebekah, who did not fight."

Elijah sat, cradling his daughter, his only surviving child, her mother's daughter, gentle and generous and wise, ferocious when provoked, playful and hard-working. Gone. She had kept him alive when Torvi had been taken from him; she had tried to keep baby Olle alive without his mother; she had worked tirelessly to keep her brothers and sister alive when the plague struck, and had almost died herself. Gyda was the one thing that had coaxed him not to give in to the plague. Their family had been brutalised, but together they were still a _family_. Now he had none. The gods had refused to let him follow.

Footsteps, and his brothers appeared; he did not see what they did, how they fought. Vaguely he was aware of Mother's voice, the stir of magic. All he could see, all he cared about, was Gyda. Her fine, black lashes casting shadows across her delicate cheekbones, dark eyes Torvi had always said were so like his, rich and warm, now hollow, no light, no goodness shining from them. She had Torvi's delicate lips, and he wept, stroking his thumb against her cheek, willing her to wake.

She did.

Those dark, gentle eyes blinked lazily, she inhaled a gasp, and stirred in his arms. She sighed, gazing up at him.

"Father?" she whispered, squirming, confusion colouring her face. He broke, as she struggled to sit, and clung to him.

A touch on his shoulder startled him, the warmth staggering. Holding Gyda tight to him, he glared as a sheet of rippling golden hair glittered in front of his eyes. Mother's beautiful face drifted into view, her scent of earthy smoke, herbs and honey overwhelming him, and he bristled away from her. She looked tired and white-faced, but colour had started to blossom in her cheeks.

"You must drink, my dearest," she said softly, holding out a carved horn cup. "Gyda, drink." She tipped the cup, and Elijah watched Gyda's eyes slide closed, lulled by whatever smelled so glorious, a little of the potion trickled from the corner of her lips down her throat, and she sighed. Elijah only heard her discomfort as he drank Mother's draft himself, clutching the horn-cup to his mouth, drinking deep.

* * *

Willem left, heading deep into the forests and falls, leaving no trace that even they could follow. He had always been an expert hunter. He had always won hide-and-seek. The villagers worshipped Lagertha as one of Freyja's Valkyrie, stronger, faster than any enemy, she protected the farmers who remained in outlying lands. Rebekah, they feared; she had killed her lover, a slave, in bed with him. Overwhelmed by the emotions that terrified him, Rebekah had become confused by her instincts, drawn to the hot rush of blood. They saw Lagertha's strength and her goodness, and adored her; they saw Rebekah's black eyes and fangs, and recoiled in fear. The winter gave way to spring, and the meagre sunlight had started to burn. Their desire for blood consumed them, the only thing that overrode their terrifying emotions, and it was blood that gave them strength. They gorged themselves during ambushes, feeding on their enemies rather than risk their friends. They all struggled. Whatever Mother had done to them, it had made them stronger in every conceivable way, and yet they had new weaknesses Mother had not predicted.

* * *

It was during another ambush that Niklaus killed his first man. His eyes glowed amber in the dark, and they watched in horror as every bone in his broke, reforming into a monstrous wolf. Crazed. He attacked Gyda, and Lagertha pinioned him to a cavern wall with sword and spears until he, howling, became a man again. He was different.

What Elijah and his elder siblings, their father, had suspected since Willem was a child, they now saw confirmed. Niklaus, at least, was not Mikael's son. Niklaus could not forgive this. He blamed Mikael's mistreatment of him all his life on his Mother's disloyalty to Mikael. That Mikael had known, all those years – Niklaus did not listen, when his elder siblings told him Mikael had beaten _them_ , too. It made them strong. No, the irresponsible, selfish Niklaus would not hear it; he would be the victim. But that was only part of his problem.

Niklaus was becoming maddened. The moon held no sway over him; but yet he had no control over his own body, his gruelling transformation. Whatever instinct came from his werewolf nature warred with what Mother had done to them. And then again, those instincts warred with Niklaus' natural selfish thoughtlessness.

It was Finn who put an end to it, carrying a broken Tatia to Mother, his heart shattered. Drawn to her by emotions confused by instinct, Niklaus had not tempered his new strength; he had taken her so forcefully her body was broken. Finn had left Niklaus weeping over what he had done to Tatia, but Mother would not heal her. She did ask her children to help her; and Elijah did so gladly.

Niklaus had already savaged Gyda during one of his transformations. She had suffered a sickness more violent than any Mother had ever witnessed, bleeding and madness exacerbated by their new strength and instincts. Elijah had taken care of her, for days, doing nothing but sitting with her, keeping her from harming anyone, bringing her a slave to feed on, cleaning her up when she could not keep the blood down, stroking her hair as she screamed for her mother, weeping over her brothers and sister, raging at Rebekah's uselessness the night Mikael had slaughtered them.

Elijah would not risk Gyda again. Not for anyone.

"Mother! Please!" Niklaus roared, thrashing against the chains Mother had spelled to contain him. Half the slaves torn apart in one night on his last transformation, and Mikael's simmering rage as Niklaus' lack of control threatened all they had built, all they had left. In his agitation, the transformation was coming on again, and those chains prevented him from harming anyone while Mother prepared. The broken Tatia lay on her side, moonlight shining down on her, eyes alive, her mind sound, but broken. Something had happened to Finn when they were killed; whatever his feelings for Tatia had altered into after Henrik's death were magnified. He loved her, still, but he also could not bear her.

Mother released the broken Tatia in death, binding Niklaus' werewolf nature. The polished moonstone Father had gifted Mother after they had settled here, after Niklaus was born, bound the spell to contain what Niklaus could not control, what made him a danger to their very survival.

* * *

Willem told them about Rollo. Returning from his isolation, Willem had found a small child, recognised her as one of Rollo's daughters, wandering in the forests, smeared with blood and crying softly. Barely three summers she had lived, and she cuddled, exhausted, in the curve of Willem's arm as he told them what he had found in Rollo's home. Their friend, their uncle for all intents and purposes, Father's most trusted soldier, Mother's lover so many years ago. Dead. His wife, a Native woman, dead, slaughtered viciously, their children butchered.

They had not seen Mikael; he had gone, trying to track Willem, the village's best hunter and the peoples' best hope for surviving the rest of the winter. Nature had turned on them, and though Elijah and his siblings were safe from the sunlight, the pretty vervain flowers that had grown at the base of the ancient white-oak tree they had burned, with the rings Elijah had fashioned and Mother spelled, the villagers were starving. The water was fouled, their food-stores, so precious, had spoiled with infestations, and Elijah believed it was _they_ who scared edible predators from the village, which otherwise they could have hunted for meat.

"Mikael has killed my father," Niklaus said quietly, his face contorting with rage, pacing. He glowered at Esther. "He has massacred your lover, the father of your _bastard_ he loathes."

Esther watched him calmly. "My son," she sighed, "Mikael has always known you were not his son; how could you be, when he did not bed me for years after Freyja's death? And yet he raised you, loved you – _protected_ you. You have grown up in a world we only ever dreamed of, you have not had to work, to _fight_ for what you have, not even half so hard as we did, as your elder-brothers did. Mikael would no sooner kill Rollo as himself."

"Father already killed himself," Niklaus retorted spitefully, and Esther's smile was gentle and ironic.

"I assure you, Niklaus, the dagger thrust into his heart was held by my steady hand," Esther said softly. She had only killed Mikael herself; she could not physically harm her own children, even to save them. Elijah watched his mother. Of all her children, she had always liked Niklaus least. Even Rebekah, so stubborn, untalented in either magic or swordsmanship, entitled, with whom she often had screaming arguments, and her nephew Kol who managed to rub her the wrong way on a daily basis – them, she loved and _liked_ , when they weren't arguing she and Rebekah were the best of friends, and there was no-one save perhaps Isak that Esther was closer to because of their shared magical ancestry. She was their mother, their _teacher_. She had been Elijah's friend for many years, long after he had become a father himself, with a family of his own. But in Niklaus, she recognised what they all did; that he was, at his core, a coward.

* * *

Elijah had returned from a hunt with his siblings and Gyda when Rebekah found her. It was early-spring, beautiful and warm, though they no longer felt discomfort in the intense heat, but everything was _alive_ with scents and noise. It was the scent of blood that drew them from Elijah's home to the village, following their noses. Neither Mikael, Niklaus or Willem had joined them on the hunt that was necessary for their survival; without blood, they weakened, and it was painful.

Something had ripped through the village – not a wolf; one of _them_. Blood was splattered here and there but half the villagers and slaves were butchered, bloodless.

Rebekah found Esther.

In her finest dress, her hair beautifully braided as always, the scent of sage and smoke and honey in the air, her necklaces of polished stone and shells and acorns and tiny carved things Elijah gifted her on occasion, covered with blood. Her crystal-blue eyes were glassy, unseeing; her heart lay in her curled hand. Niklaus wept over her body; he said to Rebekah, Mikael had told her she'd broken his heart. So he ripped hers out.

* * *

He gazed back over the waves. It was a fine spring day, the tide gentle, the sun glittering down, and their ships were laden with whatever they could carry – goods, furs, slaves. Gyda sat curled beside him, resolutely not looking back. But Elijah did. Deep into the forests, he saw smoke, great pillars of it rising black and thick. Their home. Isak's daughter had sacrificed a slave to ensure safe passage across the seas.

They were fleeing one home, in the hopes to reach the other; Elijah had not seen Kattegat in decades, he wondered whether the little fishing town had survived in that sheltered bay, the mountains looming over them. The tang of the salt in the air reminded him, and he pressed his lips to Gyda's temple, remembering his first voyage across the great ocean with Torvi.

The smoke rose, and Elijah watched with burning eyes.

* * *

He settled into a gentler sleep, and Giulia jerked awake, upright, with such momentum she tumbled backwards off the bed, landing sprawled and gasping, her heart pounding, _exhausted_ , trembling and deeply upset. She stumbled off the floor, surprised to find it glossy, polished, not the rough-hewn boards of Elijah's house or the carpet-covered floor of the carved jarlshall with Esther's herbs drying from the rafters, tapestries and blankets Rebekah had tearfully set alight as the others burned down the crofts, Isak putting slaves and villagers to the sword, Gyda glumly watching her blisters disappear as she helped Elijah rig the sails on the ship Finn had helped him build.

She panted, squashing down a churn of nausea as emotion threatened to choke her, tugging open a drawer in her dressing-table to hastily unscrew the cap of a bottle of clear nail-polish. Eyes burning, gasping sharply and sneezing at the acrid scent of polish, she painted each of her fingernails; the vervain would keep her out of Elijah's head. He had drawn her in, the vervain in her anklet disintegrated without her knowledge, and she had been powerless to escape his memories.

Giulia rested against the dressing-table, her entire body shaking, mind churning, deeply upset, her eyes burning. She had seen everything as if experiencing it for the first time through Elijah's eyes – the scents, the taste of the mead, the softness of Gyda's hair, the sound of Niklaus' back being flogged to ribbons, shaken by the strength of his emotions even before she had experienced him being turned into a vampire, murdered by his own father before Mikael had turned on the more vulnerable, cutting down fierce, beautiful Lagertha to get to Rebekah, and Elijah's stunning daughter Gyda. She had _felt_ Elijah's love for Gyda, was swept up still in his grief at finding her butchered, his confusion at Mikael's pride in her.

She remembered Lucrezia's delivery, and the image of Elijah's wife Torvi dead in childbirth, and shuddered, wiping away hot tears, easily replacing their faces with that of her mother.

Feeling Elijah's love for his daughter burning in her chest, she sniffed, reminded only of how alone she was. How much she _missed_ her father.

Letting her nail-polish dry, and with it the protection she needed from Elijah's all-consuming memories, she climbed back into bed, noticing that his fever had broken. He slept gently. She sighed with relief, and fell into a dreamless, exhausted sleep.

* * *

 **A.N.** : I know.


	31. Recovery

**A.N.** : Hi everyone, thank you so much for the reviews – I just wish you'd log in so I could respond and say thanks individually!

* * *

 **Dangerous Beauty**

 _31_

 _Recovery_

* * *

Giulia was alive, and watching television; he had not hurt her.

But he was certain that at the very least, he had not behaved like a gentleman. Delirium would do that to you.

He found her downstairs, curled up in a blanket, Firenze purring in her lap – thank the gods he had not hurt her cat! – dark shadows smudged under her eyes. There was a tang of lemon on the air, lavender soft and fragrant, and melodic, eerie music played as the television flickered brightly, the soft lamplight chasing away the dark. Outside, night had fallen; he could see the stars in their thousands, an anvil to the chest as he was thrown back to one of his oldest memories, stumbling out of his home.

He turned back to Giulia, pausing at the door to watch her. She nibbled absently at a chicken drumstick – the honey, lemon and lavender roasted chicken that was sticky to the touch and evoked always memories of Lucrezia basking in the sun. Beyond her, on the television-screen a whale soared through stars, a city without nature fastened to its back.

She was watching _Doctor Who_. She was mad for the eleventh. And he remembered this episode. _Very old, and very kind, and the very last of his kind_ , Amy Pond murmured in his ear. The Smilers and Winders, the star-whale, Liz Ten and the quirky, passionate, childlike and wise, kind Doctor.

First her friend's transformation, and his ensuing illness, it was no wonder she had looked exhausted last night. And there was a nagging worry as his memories of his fever eluded him. Not those of his past, which made his hands shake, caught in the torrent of his emotions those memories always stirred up and therefore, were best left in the past, but of his behaviour while he had been delusional.

He just…wanted to know _what_ he had done. He had one niggling suspicion that made him _blush_ , and he frowned at the scent of Giulia's vervain nail-polish sharp and unpleasantly tangy on the air. He did remember waking to a familiar stinging sensation, the sheets ruined from the sun slowly charring him – for a moment, he had not cared, lulled by Giulia's soft, warm body curled up beside him. Until he realised her fingernails were also burning him – there was an acrid tang of fingernail polish on the air he'd pressed her fingertip between thumb and forefinger and drawn them back, sizzling. A fresh application. And her sheets ruined from slow charring. He vaguely recollected, now, taking off his ring, confused where it had come from, why he wore it.

Elijah vaguely recollected some things, and yet others stood out even through the mire of fever. With the shroud of delusion lifted, he recalled things differently. And he lingered in the doorway, frozen with shame. But he was spurred on by curiosity; he needed to know how much she had seen, his eyes lingering on that lemon-lavender chicken she was picking clean while she watched the television, Firenze purring in her lap.

"That's a new recipe," he said softly, after clearing his throat uncomfortably, and he pushed his hair back from his face in a nervous habit before sidling into the room. Giulia glanced over, eyes illuminated by the television, and they flicked over him. He had put on a pair of pyjama-bottoms, and her eyes lingered on the scar at his hip.

"I woke with the inexplicable urge to try it," she said softly, licking her lips, her eyes tracing his tattoo, caressing his scars. In one of his memories, he could still taste that chicken, smell the wildflowers Alexandre had gifted Lucrezia. He had relived the most traumatic moments of his life – the moments that had fashioned him, created the man who stood before Giulia, more than the ensuing centuries ever had. Gyda's books on the Enlightenment held their sway, but they had only brought him back to himself, compounded the values he had admired long before he was turned into a vampire. Much as he had been influenced by the times he had lived through, he had refused to be changed by them. He was at his core the man he had always been – a hard-worker, dedicated to his family, a fierce lover to enigmatic women, courageous always, ferocious when necessity dictated and gentle otherwise.

He watched Giulia, nibbling delicately on the chicken-drumstick, swaying slightly as the heady memory of Lucrezia in the garden teased at his mind. He pushed it away; he was with Giulia. But she was watching him, and he was no fool; she had seen.

"How much did you see?" he asked quietly.

Giulia sighed softly, and looked him straight in the eye, admitting, "I managed to free myself from your mind when your family sailed from the colony." He breathed a heavy sigh. Had he lingered longer in the fever he was certain she would have seen more of his life with Lucrezia, those earliest, formative years when his family had learned how to survive. When he had _healed_ , fallen in love, and learned just how dark and terrifying – and exquisite – the world could be.

"You painted your fingernails," Elijah said quietly. She extended a hand, observing her elegant fingers.

"I hadn't realised the vervain in my anklet had disintegrated," she said ruminatively, glancing down at her ankle.

"You…you saw all of it?" he asked. "Even…"

"Yes," she whispered, amusement glittering in her eyes. She gave him the daintiest, most delicious little smirk. " _Even_ … It was an intriguing experience." Elijah blushed.

"I don't know how to apologise," he said hoarsely.

Giulia frowned. "You don't need to."

"I –"

"I'm quite aware of what we were doing – even if you weren't," Giulia said, raising a challenging eyebrow at him. She patted the sofa beside her.

"You are not angry or upset," Elijah frowned, not understanding. That he had taken her while he was delusional, that she _knew_ he had believed he was making love to another woman, had been drawn inside his mind while he fucked her, had… _felt_ what he had while he was with Lucrezia, believing wholeheartedly _Giulia_ was her. He wanted to go and hide under the duvet, cringing. Giulia fashioned her response carefully.

"Damon held on to Katherine for a hundred and fifty years, and he was more obsessed than in love with her," she said softly, a slight frown on her face. "If there's anything I recognise it's how deeply vampire emotions run; and you were genuinely in love with Lucrezia. I felt it. It's okay that you've still not recovered from her; she didn't just die. She disappeared. You've had no closure."

"I accepted long ago that I would never see Lucrezia again," Elijah said softly.

"That doesn't stop you from being in love with someone," Giulia mused. "My father was still in love with my mother until the day he died, probably after." Elijah smiled sadly. She rarely spoke of her father, but when she did it was clear to Elijah in her tone of voice, her expression, that she had respected and admired her father, had gotten along well with him, coveted his friendship and advice. As brilliant and mature as Giulia was, it was easy to forget she was still only a teenager. In any other time this would have made little difference; human lifetimes were now so extended that being teenaged _was_ young. And nine months ago Giulia had had a father, a tiny family, she had had a resource for advice and experience that she respected.

Elijah sighed. "I'm not still in love with Lucrezia." Giulia raised an eyebrow.

"A thousand years of memories and your deaths and fucking her are the most excruciating and glorious memories that fought to the surface when you had no control over your own mind," she said thoughtfully. Elijah stifled a smirk.

"I miss her; I will not deny that," he sighed, finally sinking onto the sofa. "And I will love Lucrezia, always. But for my own survival I cannot remain _in_ love with her… You miss out on so much while holding on to someone you know you can never have." Giulia nodded gently, understanding in her tired eyes.

"I know that too well."

"Did your father never wish to remarry?"

"He was such a private person, and my mother was _the_ _one_ ," Giulia said sadly. "I don't think it would ever have occurred to him."

"He might have given you brothers and sisters," Elijah murmured. The eldest child in a large family, father to a now-decimated but once-sprawling family of his own, over the centuries as his siblings had drifted farther afield and been hunted down by Elijah, he had come to learn the true loneliness of only-children. Giulia could not miss what she had never had, but Gyda appreciated how full and wonderful her childhood had been with her brothers and sister. And now she was alone. Just as he was now the last of them. He missed his brothers and sisters. He missed Gyda.

"I don't think my dad would've ever risked that," Giulia said, and her tone changed. If Elijah had learned one thing from his time with Giulia, it was that she was afraid of childbirth and pregnancy. She changed the channel on the television if anything regarding childbirth flitted on the screen, shuddering, and any talk of pregnancy made her uncomfortable; she couldn't understand it, felt the entire process unnatural and terrifying. It stemmed, naturally, from her mother's death in childbirth, and the part Giulia herself believed she had played in it. There was no reasoning with her that it could not possibly have been her fault; that women had been dying in childbirth for millennia. Giulia sighed, watching the television, and the star-whale who came to Earth because it couldn't stand children crying. She murmured hollowly, "I'm never having children."

"Don't say that," Elijah said softly. He remembered telling Giulia that he wanted her to have everything, and he meant it. "As broken as I am from the loss of my children, I could never…never imagine not having had them in my life. Not watching Gyda grow up, learn who she is."

"You lived apart for centuries, you rarely saw her," Giulia said thoughtfully. "But you still want to kill Klaus for her."

"While we were apart, I knew Gyda was living her own life, enjoying it, learning, growing. She was falling in love and making friends, having adventures," Elijah said, with a gentle smile, which slowly faded. "That is what…children are supposed to do. Leave their parents to create their own world. Niklaus _took that_ from her."

"How do you know she has been hunted by Klaus?"

"She did not meet me in the Nineteen-Seventies," Elijah said mournfully.

Giulia's eyes glinted with recognition. "You went to New York to meet her."

"For the first time in decades. With trains and aircraft and steam-ships it is far easier to travel; we saw more of each other in the last few decades than in the previous three centuries," Elijah said fondly. Without Niklaus and Rebekah's whims and tantrums to cater to and clean up, he was free. Free to enjoy his one pure indulgence; his daughter. Every time he saw her, she was a little different, flavoured by the times they were living in but always intrinsically herself. She had _grown_. "Gyda was my first transatlantic phone-call, decades ago… We had decided upon New York as our meeting-place. But she never showed up."

"And that's where you ran into Willem," Giulia guessed. Willem fleeing at the sight of him was awful enough; he was heartbroken that Gyda had not met him. And he had stayed in Manhattan, building a community, hoping that one day she would return. He disliked using witchcraft to track her, the way Esther had tracked them all. They never got away with any secrets – and if Gyda was having a grand adventure with a new love, he did not want to ruin it. It would have been so easy for them to become excruciatingly co-dependent, to have spent the last millennium only with each other, too afraid to be without each other; but they had set each other free.

He had set Gyda free to have her own life; she reluctantly left him to become his siblings' keeper. Over time Gyda had become not just his friend but his confidante, he told her everything he was too afraid even to admit to himself, and though she had the body of a teenager, her mind was ancient. And she had lived through too much not to be compassionate. She had her secrets, as every daughter did from her father, and she had had many of her own lives throughout the ages; he had met some of her husbands, the children she had raised – but she hated endings. She had watched one family die; she would never again watch another wither to sickness and time. Her siblings had died of plague; her aunts and uncles had devolved into monsters she did not recognise. And so she kept away.

"I think perhaps we should find a new topic of conversation," Elijah suggested on a heavy sigh. "Your mother and my daughter; two people to put us in a grand mood." Giulia's features were expressive. She licked her lips thoughtfully, cuddling and fussing over Firenze.

"I know the names of all your children, and you've told me about Gyda," she said, rubbing her chin over Firenze's head as he purred and writhed in her arms. "But you never talk about Lucrezia's children."

"I haven't seen them since the eleventh century, when we fled Marseille," Elijah said softly. "They went with Willem. But they are alive still."

"They _are_?!"

"Gyda met Lucrezia's son in the court of the Sun King when the palace of Versailles was still a royal hunting-lodge," Elijah said, not surprised. Lucrezia's son had loved above all things exquisite women with charming manners and a secret lust for the unexpected, the dangerous. "They have remained close ever since. And her daughter, Gisela…I have seen only once myself in all the ensuing centuries. At a performance of _Turandot_ at the Royal Opera House in London. She was watching the opera, and I was watching her. She wept during 'Nessun Dorma'."

"I should think so; it's _glorious_ … _Gisela_ ," Giulia said softly. "I suppose if the name was good enough for Charlemagne's daughter…"

Elijah frowned at her. "That's what Lucrezia said."

"We are _eerily_ similar," Giulia said, frowning. "Almost as if I were seeing an older version of myself. Or my mother." Elijah hummed softly. He glanced at Giulia.

"You do not…you are not anxious I am…"

"With me because I look like her?" Giulia asked, looking surprised. "I don't think that. That's a stupid reason to stay with anybody, and of all the things you are, stupid is not one." Elijah chuckled softly to himself.

"I'm glad you think so, at least," he said softly. "I sometimes feel that in a thousand years, I have learned nothing from my experiences." He gave a world-weary sigh and stretched out on the sofa, head resting on her stomach.

"Niklaus believed Mikael killed Rollo," Giulia said, gazing at the television. Head resting on her stomach, lulled by her heartbeat, Elijah gave a noncommittal grunt. "What do you think?"

Elijah sighed, watching Amy free the star-whale from torture. "Father never truly cared for Niklaus; he was certainly no reason for Father to kill his friend."

"Niklaus was fathered by Rollo," Giulia murmured. "Do you think Willem was?"

"I think it very possible," Elijah admitted, after a long pause. He glanced up at Giulia. "If Willem was Rollo's son by blood, he would have inherited his werewolf gene. He fought beside us; I know he killed. And yet I never saw any trace that he was a werewolf."

"Your mother created vampires," Giulia said, her voice dripping with irony, "I'm sure she could manage to help conceal or control Willem's shift. She gave Rollo a ring to protect him from it."

"And yet he did not suffer as Niklaus did after we turned," Elijah said.

"Maybe he did," Giulia said. "His personality was different; after what your parents did to you, he took himself off."

"He often did," Elijah said. "Even before, he liked solitude." Giulia frowned into the distance.

"When dogs or wolves are weak or sick, they take themselves away as a defence against the rest of the pack; they would have been turned on otherwise," Giulia said softly. "Perhaps after you turned, that aspect of his werewolf nature came to the front, protecting him from you."

"Why should he need protection from us?"

"Because he was different," Giulia said. "But if he _was_ a werewolf long before your mother turned you into vampires, I imagine he would have had a stronger perception of his own identity. Niklaus triggered those conflicting instincts after becoming a vampire. Perhaps Willem took himself off not just because he was different but because he recognised the conflicting instincts made him a danger to you – rather than risk hurting you like Niklaus did Gyda, he left."

"Why do you think the instincts conflicted?"

"I saw Niklaus in your memories before Esther subdued the werewolf traits," Giulia mused. "He looked like his mind was at war with itself, and being physically incapable of controlling the shift was an extension of that. And I've talked to Caroline and Tyler. Their instincts are very different; they couldn't be combined cohesively."

"You think because Willem killed before we were turned into vampires, he had a firm idea of who he was, and that prevented the same madness," Elijah frowned.

"He may have already been a werewolf. That curse is so strong it was triggered even after Klaus was created a vampire, after _death_ ," Giulia said. "Maybe Willem's identity as a werewolf was so strong he could ignore the vampire traits – Klaus would have had no idea which was which. Willem may have had the advantage of being able to see through that confusion, recognising the instincts that had kept him alive as a werewolf."

Elijah glanced up at Giulia as she threaded her fingers absently through his hair, gently massaging his scalp, wondering where her mind had gone as she quietened, watching the television.

"Can I take you somewhere tomorrow?" she asked, a little while later, and Elijah nodded. The episode ended, and Giulia turned off the television. "Would you play for me?" Elijah smiled, kissed her stomach and crawled off the sofa, stretching his fingers. She did have a beautiful piano. And he loved to play for her. Lifting the lid, he sat, wondering where she intended to take him.

* * *

The woods were _alive._ Rustling leaves, tiny birds, crickets and other insects singing in the sighing underbrush as a breeze swept the perfume of wildflowers and herbs up from the sun-warmed earth. It had rained while he suffered through his fever, and as he inhaled the fresh scent of wet greenery with each step, he closed his eyes, and could believe he was _home_ , smiling in the gentle sun as a delicate spring-rain watered his crops, studiously pulling weeds as his children played in the rain. The echoes of their laughter seemed to reverberate from the dewy leaves, the fragrant spring blossoms, the grassy, life-giving forest he had wandered a thousand years ago, and Giulia guided them to the cobweb of natural caverns his sons used to play in.

"You know this place," Giulia observed, seeing his gentle smile.

"I do; beneath lies a network of caves my sons used to play in with Henrik and boys from the Natives' village," he said softly. "The Natives used to take refuge here from the savagery of the full-moon. Mother said…there must be a balance."

"Your family didn't come here?"

"We had Mother, Isak and Kol," Elijah said, with an enigmatic shrug.

"Kol as well?" Elijah chuckled fondly.

"Kol is much older than he looks," he said, smiling. "He learned from my mother how to extend his life with magic, long before we were turned into vampires. He was born the same winter as Isak."

"What happened to his parents?" Elijah glanced at Giulia, pushing memories away; they had been leaking into his dreams more easily than they had in decades, the venom crumbling the foundations of the walls he had put up for his own survival. The blood bright against the spring snows, the fire raging where the granary had been set alight, dead slaves everywhere, men strung up – worst was the women. The raiders, the Jarl's enemies, had not killed them; they had made sport of the women, even the young girls. Mother had sensed it; she had healed her sister, half-dead, evidence all around her of the magic she had channelled in her pain and fury, bodies bearing unmistakable marks of being mutilated by Dark magic. His aunt was brutalised despite it.

A witch could only channel so much magic before it took its toll, Mother had always told them, something she had told them as defence against any other witch they came across, and Elijah had never forgotten it. Push witches too far, magic would kick back. The backlash from defending herself against two men had left her vulnerable to a dozen more.

"Today, the media would call it gang-rape," he said. Usually he was more subtle, kept things closer to the vest; the werewolf bite had broken down his defences and he had drawn Giulia in. She had witnessed his time as he had experienced it, there was no apologising for the way things were, no explaining it away. Raids and rape and torture had been the every-day during a very brutal time when survival in a harsh time was hard. "Long before my father took his place, the old jarl's enemies attacked a nearby village where my aunt lived. Kol was a result. My aunt never survived the attack, combined with Kol's birth and her magic. The trauma combined wreaked havoc on her, made her unstable and dangerous…. Kol never knew her as is mother; Esther raised him. As far as we were concerned, he was our brother. Mother…had to keep Dagmaer away from Kol, for fear she would hurt him as she tried just after he was born… They both knew Kol had tremendous magic; Mother believed Dagmaer thought she could use his magic to…heal herself. Dagmaer died the winter before Freyja died."

"Do you miss her?"

"It was a long time ago," Elijah said. She raised an eyebrow, not taking any of it. He sighed. "She was attacked when I was still just a child. As I grew older and learned what had happened to her, for my mother's sake, I felt great sorrow for the woman Dagmaer might have been. The sister my mother had lost. But she frightened even my father, and knowing she had tried to kill Kol made me always defensive toward her."

"You grew up in a brutal world," Giulia sighed softly, looking indescribably sad. And it was sad. Dagmaer's fate had devastated his mother. Elijah had vague recollections of the sharp-eyed, beautiful woman dancing naked with his mother during their celebrations, elegant and always smiling. That was before. After her body had healed, Dagmaer's mind had remained broken, and it had taken its toll on her beauty, her health. Made her deranged and wicked. Out of Mother's earshot, Father had confessed he was surprised Dagmaer had lived as long as she had, so broken. Today, doctors would have diagnosed Dagmaer with a severe psychotic break and tried to help her. Mother had tried her best; but she had a growing family, a farm to run and other villagers seeking her aid to look after.

"I did," Elijah agreed. Giulia sighed, shaking her head as she gazed at him. She stepped forward, fingers curling around his neck, and kissed him tenderly.

"What was that for?" he asked, with a soft smile, wanting another.

"I think you're doing okay," she said quietly, her voice earnest. Elijah cleared his throat uncomfortably.

"The last time I suffered the werewolf-bite I was not half so calm when I recovered," he said, holding her eye. He leaned in for another kiss, sighing and melting into it, relieved. He was worrying things would alter between them because of what he had showed her of Lucrezia – of what he had done to her while believing he was really with Lucrezia. She'd smirked, telling him it had been the best kind of threesome they could ever have: he'd fooled around with the other woman a thousand years ago; she'd had him to herself. "I believe I have you to thank for that."

"I didn't do anything."

"You're here," he said quietly. Her eyes were sad when she smiled; she cradled his cheek in her hand, thumb stroking his cheekbone, and stole a kiss.

"Come on," she whispered, then smiled and wandered away.

"Where are you taking me?" Elijah asked, smiling as he followed. He'd follow her anywhere – the view made him trip over his own feet, a perfectly plump backside and a beautiful little waist. An hourglass, he sighed, knowing she wore no bra beneath her pretty black top with the dainty white blossoms printed on it, a cascade of sunny yellow and red roses tumbling over one shoulder, the v-neckline very low. She rarely wore a bra around him, and he stirred, thinking of that delicate little piercing. Gods, he loved that, he loved that tiny surprise, the hint that beneath the classical, intense beauty there was something stronger, more dangerous, tempting. He loved the way she purred and writhed while he suckled and tugged it. He stifled a growl, trying to remain focused. She had brought him here for a reason – not a rendezvous.

"Last year, I was researching an essay on the Underground Railroad through Mystic Falls," Giulia explained, glancing over her shoulder. For herself, Giulia had brought a dazzling LED flashlight; she showed him a new way into the caves, a thousand years shifting the natural structure, and they made their way through the tunnels, his sons' laughter and the Natives' songs echoing off the dank stone as shards of light dappled off the walls.

It was the caves, the quiet, and his recent exposure to memories he had long since bricked away that made him pause the deeper they ventured into the tunnels, caught shivering in memory, details plaguing him like they hadn't for centuries. Having Torvi by one of the falls, the afternoon he was sure Gyda had come into being, the setting so perfect as the sun set on a rare hot, lazy day; teaching his sons to use a sword and spear; chasing and playing with Annika until she screamed with delight, throwing her up in the air and catching her, receiving her kisses; roughhousing with his brothers after a long day; Alrik's flushed cheeks as Mother healed his finger, crushed.

He glanced up in the darkness, blind to Giulia; all he saw was his boys, jostling each other as Alrik worked his small chisel and a hammer against the rock.

She felt him leave, rather than saw. She knew _he_ could see perfectly in the dank catacombs, but bright as her LED flashlight was she could see nothing beyond that glow. Suddenly, he was gone, drawn by some memory he hadn't shared with her the other night. She had seen the most debilitating memories, the ones he either feared or were hurt by the most in a thousand years of lifetimes, but they were merely _glimpses_. He had lived so much _more_. And something about the caves had triggered recognition.

An echo made the hairs at the back of her neck prickle upright, and she eyed the cave roof, assessing. Not a rockslide, which would be uncomfortable. She frowned beyond the glow of light, and called, "Elijah?" Something had happened up ahead. Whatever it was, Elijah was a thousand years old; any supernatural boogeyman, he could handle. When she received no answer, she sighed, stepping carefully on the uneven ground.

Her heart jumped to her throat, only the flash of a half-inch of white collar above his suit-jacket collar warning her before she bumped into Elijah, and she backed up a pace, jaw dropping as Elijah moaned softly.

He had been pinioned in place in the centre of the passage. No fewer than six _lances_ had speared his body at odd, inescapable angles. She could only describe them as lances – hewn spears at least six inches in diameter, jutting from crevices in the rock. One had struck almost clean through his heart. She clamped the flashlight between her teeth and, feeling very much like Indiana Jones, assessed the lances, the rest of the passage, and ducked between two of the trees sticking out of Elijah's body. The lances were rough-hewn – and looked _very_ old, still dusty; she looked around, and the flashlight illuminated great drifts of dust and debris and cobwebs that had been dislodged by this – this _Home Alone_ -esqueanti-vampire security-system. She had walked these caves a hundred times; _nothing_ like this had ever happened – she didn't even know these were here.

She grabbed the one speared through his heart – _Ermengildo Zegna_ _this time_ , she thought; Elijah needed to perhaps dress down while he was plotting vengeance on his brother, he was going through a wince-worthy tailor's bill all too easily. And ironically he had been lanced through the heart the afternoon he'd ruined an Armani suit. A Salvatore responsible each time. She grimaced guiltily, wrestling the spear from his heart, frowning as she realised that a soft hissing noise was coming from him – specifically, from the places where he was stuck like a suckling-pig. The spears, though ancient, had been steeped in vervain, and she noticed guiltily that Elijah's face had been burned by more of it. Another anti-vampire boobie-trap.

Oops.

As soon as she removed the spear, Elijah seemed to stir. She had trouble with the others, lodged at such peculiar angles, the ends of the spears still deep inside the crevices of rock – she had to twist and manipulate them and even cause Elijah more pain by moving him, at least until the next two spears were removed from his body – she gently guided him to the side to free another, and the last two she had to shove back where they had come from, quickly moving Elijah out of the way. By the fourth she removed, he was conscious, silently helping her efforts. But there was a coppery tang on the air, and though his face had healed the scent of vervain and burnt flesh made her sniff and sneeze delicately, trying not to think about the centuries-old dust and mites and whatever else had died in those crevices she was inhaling. Elijah at last came free, and Giulia helped him stumble out of the way – he grasped her hand and kept her from going too deeply into the passage from the spears.

"There may be more," he warned. Giulia frowned.

"That's never happened before," she said wonderingly, gazing at the spears dangling eerily from the rocks. _Definitely Indiana Jones_ , she thought.

"I'm sure it has not," Elijah said quietly, glancing at her. "Those were very ancient booby-traps. Only a vampire could have triggered them… A gift from my old neighbours, I believe." That he implied the Natives had left the booby-trap behind compounded Giulia's already pretty solid belief that what she wanted to show him had been left by the Native tribe his family had once known. "You did well to dislodge them."

"Mm. I thought I might have to get the cordless handheld-saw in my trunk."

"Why do you have a saw in your trunk?"

"You never know," Giulia said, quirking an eyebrow, and Elijah smiled softly. She helped prop him up against the cavern wall. "Your suit's ruined. I have to talk to you about _Fruit-of-the-Loom_." He chuckled softly. "Are you healing? There are a couple blood-bags in my car."

"No, thank you," Elijah said quietly. He had _never_ consumed blood in her company. Had never even accidentally nibbled; but then, Giulia knew one of his defining qualities was his self-restraint. Not giving in to what he desired… She hadn't given him any choice but to indulge in her; her mortality was certain and she refused to give in to any fear of it. She wanted to revel in every moment. And that meant having him as many times as she could.

It was curious, though. Even his most traumatic memories never showed his reaction to drinking blood. "You've never asked if you could…"

"I never confuse the two," Elijah said, his eyes gloriously dark as he gave her a sad smile.

"Fucking and feeding?" she smirked, undoing his jacket buttons and sighing at the mess within; his dusty forget-me-not shirt was soaked with blood, torn, singed. His jacket was too dark for her to tell. She surprised a laugh out of him.

"I would no sooner take a casserole to bed than feed from you…" he murmured, and Giulia glanced at him from the corner of her eye. She knew he was a _foodie_ , he did not merely eat to survive, he relished food. Food from the _earth_. Blood, to him, was a necessary evil. "I think my attitude toward blood is more like…a diabetic's to insulin. Necessary for my survival, and ultimately a pain." The modern attitude of vampires toward feeding hadn't originated from _him_ , then. They had never actually addressed that Elijah was indeed a _vampire_ , that he required blood for survival. Giulia knew he was, so did Elijah, but he had neither hidden the fact from Giulia, nor did he rub it in her face. He did not drink blood from _Baccarat_ crystal rather than bourbon, or chew on her – nor did he invite a sorority to the house to get drunk, play _Twister_ and have a blood-orgy.

Elijah's mentality toward his vampirism was very revealing, his likening it to necessary _medicine_. He watched her carefully, then said, "You've never offered."

"I'm not a _snack_ ," Giulia chided him playfully, then she pulled a face, her tone dry, saucy. "Well, except in bed. And on the piano."

"Anywhere I can have you," Elijah corrected, drawing her to him with a hand on her waist. He nuzzled her nose delicately, stealing tiny kisses. She drifted away dreamily, smiling.

"Later," she whispered, snatching a fiery kiss from him that had to set his blood on fire. It did; she felt it. Smirking to herself, she stepped away again – her smile faded as she watched his face crease into a distracted frown, eyes darting into the darkness. She licked her lips. "Earlier…you remembered something."

"I did," Elijah said, giving nothing away. Giulia watched him. Once bitten, he was shy about darting off again. Much as he knew he would survive any injury, it didn't stop them hurting. He seemed more annoyed at being speared by ancient Native American booby-traps than anything else, but hesitant enough not to go darting away again.

"Are you okay to continue? I need you to see it," Giulia said, and Elijah nodded after a huge sigh, rolling his shoulders, glancing down at his ruined shirt, clicking his tongue at his blood-soaked tie. "It's important."

"Please allow me to go first," he said softly, and Giulia didn't argue; the only thing she wanted to be speared by was him. Whether there were no others, or as Giulia guessed, they had been triggered over the centuries, besides one burst of dried vervain deeper into the passage, they did not come across any other anti-vampire booby-traps. Elijah believed that those who had set the traps would have believed that anyone who could survive to see what was beyond them, deserved to see it.

They were nearly at the cave she wanted to show him when Elijah stopped so suddenly she almost bounced off him. He steadied her gently, but turned distractedly to the wall, sinking to a crouch. His fingers glowed in the dark, and Giulia shone the flashlight on the wall as he traced his fingertips over a mark carved into the rock. The look on his face was close to reverence, and in the flashlight his eyes glittered with tears that did not fall, emotion filling his face in a way he rarely let show. The last couple of days had been a tidal-wave of visceral responses from a man who kept everything so tidily under the surface. And Giulia loved this side of him as much as she loved the enigmatic side. She loved the puzzle, the challenge – but his vulnerability was heart-breaking.

Giulia lowered the beam of the flashlight, feeling like she and the light were intruding on a very private moment. She saw his lips tremble, watched him sigh as a tear slipped free, glittering down his cheek as he traced his fingertips over an ancient glyph carved into the stone.

"One afternoon after a long harvest, my sons and Henrik had to drag my son Alrik to the jarlshall. Mother healed his crushed thumb; they'd jostled Alrik while he used a chisel and hammer to engrave their names into the stone," Elijah said, his voice soft and full of emotion. He sniffed, cleared his throat. There was a soft sound almost like a laugh. "He always hated learning runes. Never thought he'd have any use for them." He glanced over his shoulder, his eyes bright, and offered her his hand; she took it, squatting down beside him, and he turned the light onto the glyphs carved crudely into the stone. Time had worn them down, but the impressions were still there, unnatural angles in the rough-hewn rock. He told her the _fuþark_ , the runic alphabet his mother had taught him as a child, using the letters his second son Alrik had carved into the wall. There was Björn's name, Alrik, Gunnar and Olle, Henrik's name as well, and Elijah's fingers lingered over the carved runes of his name. Nearly every awful thing that had happened to his family – his human family – had stemmed from Henrik's death. Not his fault; but it had happened.

"Alrik had a chisel," Giulia said softly, smiling. "Was he your apprentice?"

"In carpentry?" Elijah smiled, nodding. "He marvelled at the idea a tree could be made into something so beautiful as one of my ships."

"You still built them, after you moved here?"

"We were farmers, but we had also come from a village that relied on its fishing," he said softly. "The ocean gave life. Especially in the early days of our settlement. So we needed boats; and I was the best carpenter in our village. I was never a witch but Mother said my magic was in woodwork."

"That I agree with," Giulia said drily, surprising a deep chuckle and a grin from Elijah. He reached out and pinched her ass playfully. She swatted his hand away, overbalancing. He leaned over, giving her a kiss on the cheek, then turned back to the wall. Giulia got the sense he could stay there all day, just staring at those ancient letters, names of brothers long dead. _Viking graffiti_ , she thought, and she remembered a quote from _Doctor Who_.

" _People fall out of the world sometimes, but they – they always leave traces, little things you can't quite account for: faces in photographs; luggage; half-eaten meals…rings. Nothing is ever forgotten, not completely, and, if something can be remembered, it_ can _come back_."

Not really. But the sentiment was sweet; and those runes were proof that once, Elijah's sons had _lived_. They were long gone, but once upon a time they had been here, brothers having fun together, carving graffiti into the wall.

Elijah sighed, turning to Giulia. "Thank you for bringing me here." She tipped his chin with her fingertips, pressing a kiss to his lips, and he cradled her face in his hands, keeping her there for a lingering moment. "But this isn't what you wanted to show me, is it?"

"Truthfully, I never even knew this was here," she said sadly. It would have driven her mad. He straightened, offering his hand to her, and she noticed his hand shook as he threaded his fingers with hers, walking away. He didn't look back, and Giulia thought it took him all the strength he had; he didn't want to break the way she didn't think he remembered doing while he was ill. At one point, he had sobbed in her arms. But he didn't remember that; and she wasn't going to tell him.

In no time at all, Giulia was squeezing through the crevice into a cave no-one could have found if they didn't already know where it is. Giulia had been smoking a joint the day she had found it, the smoke had been sucked into the cave, and she'd followed. No booby-traps set off when Elijah followed her, uncaring of his already-ruined suit. She paused as the rocky crevice widened to a narrow passage; beyond, the cave would open out. Elijah gave her a thoughtful frown, bemused; why had she stopped? She glanced into the cave, then back at Elijah, catching him with a hand on his stomach to stop him.

Her expression was the most solemn he had possibly ever seen it, and…oddly apologetic. Whatever she knew was beyond was meant for _him_ , he knew. She knew something he did not, and it was that apologetic tint to her deeply saddened expression that made him hesitant. Did he want to see what was beyond? These were the Natives' caves, a place precious to them for the safety they offered from the savagery of the full-moon – and escape from their enemies. These tunnels had been used as an escape and a means to ambush attackers long before runaway slaves had used them for shelter.

Giulia waited at the mouth of the cave. This was something she was certain he would appreciate having discovered in private. She had seen the markings a year ago, confused and entranced by them, wanting to know the key to deciphering them.

It got so quiet the only thing she could hear was the steady tick-tick of her usually quite silent watch, and the sound of her shoes on the rough stone floor when she fidgeted.

She had been thinking of this cave since she had lived Elijah's memories. She had realised what the cipher was a few months ago, but until now the context had evaded her. Now she knew. And Elijah would understand it better than anyone.

His footsteps drew her out of her own thoughts about Klaus and Willem and Esther and werewolves and jewellery and she glanced up. Wordlessly, Elijah led the way back out of the tunnels. She had to shield her eyes from the blazing sunlight, even shielded by cavern entrance and the trees, too used to the darkness. Standing in his ruined suit in the sunshine, Elijah had never looked worse. It wasn't the blood-soaked shirt, the torn suit jacket… It was the look on his face. Earlier she had thought he had been showing more emotion than he ever had since his illness from the werewolf-venom; the look on his face now eclipsed anything.

Pure white-hot rage. So strong he couldn't even speak.

She knew some of his tells: that tiny muscle that ticked in his jaw; clenching and unclenching his fists unconsciously. He was very still in his agitation. But his dark eyes showed a mind racing. Finally, he turned to her, white-lipped, aghast.

"How did you know?" he asked simply. Giulia withdrew something from her pocket, and Elijah's eyes homed on it. He sighed softly. "I took that from Elena. I hid it away."

"I know. I took it from your hiding-place," Giulia said unconcernedly. Elena's – Rebekah's – _Esther's_ pewter pendant glinted in her fingers. "Last September when Stefan gave Elena this pendant, I realised where I'd seen the pattern before… When I learned it had belonged to your mother, I realised what the paintings meant."

"And the conclusion you came to?" Elijah asked curtly. Giulia sighed.

"Niklaus killed Rollo… He killed your mother."

Elijah gave an odd sort of nod, his expression closing off the way she was used to. But his lips trembled again, and his eyes had watered. He was fighting for control; she wouldn't affect the outcome by approaching him. He had to break down or pull himself together on his own. He raised a hand to his eyes, pressing hard, and after a moment gasped and let his hand fall, sniffing.

"A thousand years ago I heard it from his lover's lips that Niklaus had killed our mother," he said softly, glancing at Giulia, who stared at him, honestly surprised. She was learning too much, putting too much together that perhaps Elijah wasn't, had access to more and wasn't _sharing_ what she knew could help him… But he had a thousand years of history – his own, and with the various members of his family, none of whom she had met and if his brother had his way for the next thousand years as he had the last, she never would. His eyes sparkled with tears, but he pushed them back. "For a thousand years I pushed the thought away as a _lie_."

"Why would she make up a lie like that?"

"Aurore was mentally unstable," Elijah said, his voice now without a tremor of emotion. "Capricious and spoiled, she did what she wanted for her own amusement, to watch others be punished. She was delighted by causing arguments… But she knew the truth all along. Niklaus… _told her_." Giulia raised a foot against the tree behind her, leaning, and sighed. The Natives' paintings inside that cave had told stories. The creation of vampires. And the deaths of a werewolf and the witch who created the vampires, at the hands of a monster not bound to any moon or harmed by the sun. Over a thousand years ago, the Natives had learned the truth of Esther's and Rollo's deaths – their murders.

They had not been killed at the hands of Mikael, a man whose children had spent a thousand years fleeing him, a powerful witch's Viking warlord husband. He had not killed Rollo for vengeance, for being his wife's lover; he had not killed Esther for giving birth to a bastard.

Niklaus had murdered them.

Worse, in Giulia's mind; he had pinned it on Mikael, the man who had raised him, and turned Mikael's other children against him. For a thousand years Elijah and his siblings, Gyda, had lived in fear of the vampire who hunted vampires, who had scoured the earth trying to track them down.

Now Elijah realised the truth about _why_.

Mikael had been blamed for a murder he had not committed – his own children had been manipulated into believing _he_ was to blame for the death of their mother.

From Mikael's perspective, it was heart-breaking. He had lost his best-friend, his wife, and all of his children – one to death, the others, to his wife's murderer.

Because of one asshole.

They stayed out in the woods for a long time. At a certain point, Elijah did break down.

He had to reassess a thousand years of his own history.

To be lied to and manipulated and treated so abominably as Klaus had treated Elijah, treated all of them, it was mortifyingto learn the truth. Everything he'd thought was concrete had shifted underfoot, knocking him breathless. He collapsed onto the ground, and Giulia held him while he sobbed silently, clutching at her.

They left the woods, Elijah's ruined suit-jacket slung over his shoulder as he draped his arm around hers; she had an arm around his waist and dipped a hand to gently squeeze his ass. He curled her toward him, pressing a kiss to her temple, and they wandered back to her car, where she found a change of clothing for him, and he drew her into the backseat, testing her flexibility and letting Elijah work off some of his frustration and helplessness.

She'd never be able to look at the backseat without thinking of them together there – talk about _creative_.

* * *

 **A.N.** : Always end on a high note, eh?!


	32. A Nuisance

**A.N.** : Just started watching the final episode of season three of _The Originals_ , and my first thought was, STOP TOUCHING HER! WRONG WOMAN! WRONG, JUST WRONG! You are not for obnoxious sluts called Hayley, you are for _Giulia_!

* * *

 **Dangerous Beauty**

 _32_

 _A Nuisance_

* * *

They didn't discuss the cave; what was there to say?

They both knew what the glyphs meant, and Elijah had to reconcile the last millennium with this new perspective. The truth about his mother's murder, and just how deeply Niklaus' manipulation truly went. Elijah had believed _time_ had corrupted his brother – time, anger and fear. Anger at their mother's perceived dishonesty about his paternity – fear at being hunted by his mother's husband for being cuckolded. This was not the case: for a thousand years, Elijah had protected the manipulative liar who had murdered his mother from his father, her husband, who had justly sought vengeance.

She couldn't imagine how wounded Mikael's pride was at the accusation, how heart-sore that all of his children had been turned against him by his wife's murderer. That his children _fled_ at the mere mention of his name. No one truly wanted to be feared – especially not a father, by his own children.

Niklaus had not devolved over time into a monster who punished and manipulated; he had _started_ that way, a petulant, bullying coward, untrustworthy, sly, _nasty_. He had worked his manipulation so thoroughly he had created a shield made of his siblings to protect him from his father.

It was no wonder Klaus was a controlling bully driven mad by paranoia; only he knew the truth about _why_ he was being hunted by Mikael. The moment his lie was revealed, he would lose that precious safety.

All this and more Elijah had to think about. That his brothers and sisters, his _daughter_ , had been killed by Niklaus after he had perceived them to have betrayed him, putting themselves before him; they had been enduring his lie from the very beginning. And he _dared_ to accuse them of treachery. How had it come to this, the youngest-surviving brother, the architect of their family's destruction, dictating their lives?

Fear. Niklaus' fear of discovery – the siblings' fear of Mikael that had manifested itself stronger in them as vampires than the respectful wariness they had showed him as humans. Perhaps it had been so easy to believe Niklaus because they had all feared what Mikael was truly capable of.

He had murdered _them_ , after all.

Elijah was such an introvert it was difficult to gauge his reaction, what was going on behind those warm brown eyes. But she knew; she knew him. He played the piano for hours, creating beautiful music rather than destroy things. As a human, he had always _worked_ ; and now that he no longer had to, it was his coping mechanism to be busy, to improve things, to make a contribution. While his world crumbled around him, Elijah fought to create something.

He sat at the piano, or filled the kitchen with glorious scents, introducing her to new things, or sat on the deck overlooking the lake, carving puzzle after puzzle he'd unceremoniously present her with. She had a collection growing on the coffee-table, different woods and designs, even some spinning-tops and dice – a single pair of naughty ones he'd created just for her were in constant use, and her stomach hurt from laughing – a box with ridiculously challenging sliding panels and hidden catches – a nod at her not only having found his hiding-place but being able to free Esther's pendant from another puzzle-box.

Each time she came home, it was to a glorious meal, the sound of a concerto, new hand-carved trinkets; she had to bring new pencils home from the art-supply store by campus because he'd gone through his, filling the pages of his sketchbooks with designs for jewellery and furniture, instruments and puzzles, Easter eggs. She loved his sketches – recently, they had taken the form of his memories.

The Band-Aid had been ripped off by werewolf-venom and his memories leaked out onto the sketchbook pages. Detailed, incredible drawings, sometimes coloured, of Elijah's past. His children, Torvi the day he married her, his daughter Gyda in the 1770s, Lucrezia sitting naked on a chaise with her back to him, gazing thoughtfully into space, Lagertha being healed by Esther, Willem with his glowing amber eyes and flourishing scalp-tattoo full of berserkrage. Beautiful things, too; women's elaborate hairstyles, ships in busy ports, elegant hands, a ballroom, familiar cities, details, a wide avenue of trees draped with Spanish moss, the gardens of Versailles, beautiful slave-girls bathing, botanic greenhouses, portraits of old friends and houses. His favourite subject to sketch seemed to be Gyda. Each time he had met her over the centuries created memories so strong he remembered every detail – the sheen or weave of fabric teh glint of embroidery and jewels, the vibrancy of colours, the flush to her cheek, her first pearl earrings, the stuffed dates and pomegranates she nibbled in Jerusalem, a favourite of the French Queen of Jerusalem who had never seen France, the elaborate embellishment of Muslim armour, medieval musicians and afternoon-teas at the Savoy. Every lifetime he had known his daughter, encapsulated in one large sketch so detailed it could have been a photograph, showing how different each life had been, or glimpses of tiny details Elijah remembered, associated with her.

Each sketch of Gyda showed the same face, but Elijah had the extraordinary talent of showing how much Gyda had matured through her eyes. Like her father, Gyda's eyes poured emotion. Her hairstyles differed vastly, in some sketches she wore rouge, others the gilded Elizabethan collar, beribboned braids, piled curls decorated with jewels, a flirty, naturally curling bob with dramatic makeup and a beautiful dress, beaming at him from a gramophone, a cocktail in her hand. But her fine dark lashes, her warm brown eyes and her beautiful rose-pink lips were the same. He left his sketches lying in piles whenever he meticulously removed them from his sketchbooks, and every afternoon Giulia returned home, she knew what moods he had been in by the content of those drawings. They weren't all of beautiful things; and he burned those ones or shredded them at the end of each day.

He did not draw Niklaus.

There were a couple of his mother, when she was younger, a baby in her arms, beaming with a dark-haired woman with flowers braided into her hair, a simple head-shot of Esther, slightly older, more beautiful. Her resemblance to her daughters was striking: fiercer Lagertha twiddling a knife between her fingers,, the more delicate, more refined beauty of Rebekah, superbly elegant in a powder-blue raw-silk empire gown with fluttering organza petal-sleeves, her face glowing with delight, a parasol in one hand, a duelling sword in the other, her delicate shawl falling from her shoulder as she laughed, her hair piled up in elaborate curls, Spanish moss swaying lazily in the breeze behind her, a beautiful white antebellum mansion in the distance, a sea of wheat shimmering golden in the sunlight, longhorn cattle and slaves dotted around.

Elijah's sketches were raw, natural; they were imperfect and beautiful, emotive, made her wonder what had been happening when that particular moment had been committed to memory. The drawings she liked, he let her keep; he tucked some away, and destroyed the rest. Giulia wanted to frame some of them, they were so beautiful.

He had sketched Elena, wearing his mother's pendant, the afternoon he finally asked about it: "How did Elena come to acquire my sister's necklace?"

"Stefan," Giulia said simply. She smiled, climbing off the chaise, and went to one of her bookcases in the study, searching for the old leather-bound diary. "I thought you'd ask where Elena go the necklace. So, I stole Stefan's journals from the Twenties."

"You stole his journals?" Elijah asked, with a touch of disapproval. Only a touch.

"He keeps them inside a locked armoire," Giulia shrugged, smirking. "How's a girl to resist? It really wasn't wise of Stefan to keep his nefarious misdeeds documented. Some curious upstart relative could use them against him." She smirked, and plucked Stefan's diary from the shelf, the spine embossed with the year.

"What did you find?"

"1922. Chicago," Giulia said, waving the diary. "The Ripper of Monterrey had headed north to enjoy the Prohibition. Everything was forbidden…everything sounded so much fun."

"You would have enjoyed the Twenties," Elijah said thoughtfully. "The refinement, the glamour…the Charleston…"

"The booze," Giulia added, with a smile, folding her leg under her as she sat back down on the chaise, cuddled up to his side, and flicked through the old pages. "Here's a passage I _particularly_ enjoyed: ' _March 12, 1922. I've blacked out days. I wake up doused in strangers' blood, in places I don't recognise – with women whose names evade me_ '." She gasped, glancing at Elijah with wide eyes and her mouth in a perfect O. "Stefan wasn't a virgin when he met Elena? D'you think we should tell her Stefan is not a _man of virtue_?"

"Giulia," Elijah smirked subtly.

"You're probably right – let's not upset the delicate little flower," she sniffed.

"You were going to tell me how Stefan acquired the pendant," Elijah said, tapping the diary with his fingertip.

"Elijah, it's not like you to skip foreplay," she chided. "Have a little patience; this is the good bit."

"Very well, continue," he sighed, his eyes sparkling, and she shivered away as he taunted her, tracing the side of his pinkie-finger against her nipple-piercing through the fabric of her top.

She cleared her throat, focusing on the page: "' _I feel alive again. There are no rules here. Nothing matters anymore. Chicago is a place teeming with life and pulsing with people I have only imagined meeting, drinking with as well as enjoying_ '. Here we get to the exquisite bits. ' _June 14, 1922. Gloria's was in full swing again this evening, offering the very best champagne, music – and appetisers. All other ladies fade in importance, however, when she enters the room. I have spoken of her before, with her shimmering blonde hair and those immaculate lips. The face of an angel, concealing her true nature; that of a monster more devilish than even I. Rebekah. Let me repeat her name for eternity, for I know I shall love her just as long. Instead of shaming me for my actions, my darling Rebekah joins me, often cajoles me to embrace this part of myself that Alexia would have me lock away. We live in a world of macabre hedonism, and revel in it, like our very own demonic fairy-tale of blood, champagne and lust. My small flat, hidden in a respectable part of town, provides sanctuary for us whenever her brother has one of his tempers. Rebekah claims they occur often, just as her brother claims Rebekah will one day forget to love me. Over her centuries, she has loved many – the difference is, of course, that I am already made vampire. She tells me of her brother's protégé and son, Marcellus, her grief palpable; every time I wipe the tears from her cheeks, I regret that Marcel is dead – for causing her pain, I would rip the heart from his chest myself. And rip him limb from limb for choosing immortality over her – her brother made him choose. Eternity without her, or to spend the rest of his human life with her. Three years since his death, Rebekah is only just starting to heal; we began our relationship with my being a distraction for her. Fifty-two years 'in a box' and Rebekah has yet to truly forgive him for it, even in death. Our bond has grown; we are mutually infatuated with each other, making love to her is fierce, insane, and very real. We have broken my bed numerous times, and laugh so hard we cry, our stomachs hurting_.

' _Rebekah is the only woman I have ever loved, though she is able to compel other vampires, as an Original. We have spent our days tucked away safely in my little apartment, fucking and whispering secrets. Being naked with Rebekah is intimate – all our inhibitions are pared back, we tell each other our secrets, our greatest fears and the most desperate yearnings of our hearts. Rebekah has confessed to me her deepest desire; to be loved unconditionally, and to love fully in return with no fear of betrayal or punishment. Nik has killed all her past lovers – except the slave, his adopted son, Marcel, whom he turned. I would do anything for Rebekah – for Nik, too. It has been too long since I enjoyed having a friend. A brother. He no longer loathes me for my presence in his sister's life, though he still takes issue with my 'funny' hair. Perhaps something about me reminds him of himself, my behaviour and methods continue to impress him. Rebekah claims punishing loved-ones comes naturally to Nik: he killed most of his family; I killed my father. Both of us were spurned by our fathers, abandoned by our elder-brothers – though I believe Nik's behaviour, like mine, was responsible for him leaving. Rebekah told me their brother, her 'good' brother, departed Nik and Rebekah's company when the fires destroyed their home in New Orleans. I have heard whispers that Damon is in Chicago: at least he is learning how to_ enjoy _his immortality. Perhaps now he will understand he shouldn't punish me for the gift I gave him by making him drink. Nik believes this, at least_.'

Giulia glanced up from the page, handing Elijah a very old, black and white photograph, a very beautiful girl in glorious jewellery and a floaty, embellished evening-dress, a faux-bob of pinned curls, a disdainful little nose and a glass of champagne, being kissed on the cheek by Stefan in a fine tuxedo. Klaus stood on Stefan's other side, smirking. Elijah stared in surprise. "Stefan knew my brother and sister in the 1920s."

"It's very e.e. cummings the way he pares back his writing as the Ripper," Giulia mused. "You can tell when he's the Ripper; nothing superfluous to distract from the bare facts. When he first references Rebekah, he's still very much the Ripper; I think loving her drew him back to himself. His writing becomes much more romantic, beautiful, even…"

"May I read this?" Elijah asked, gently taking the diary from her.

"You'll want to pay especial attention to his entries around midsummer," she noted. "Everything changes – his tone, his handwriting, he's utterly confused about what he's been up to, he doesn't recognise what he wrote days before, he describes the artefacts he's found in his apartment but can't place why they're there – gowns, a dressing-table, photographs of a beautiful young-woman, lipstick…perfume that evokes a deep emotional response but he has no face to match it to… And he writes about the night police raided Gloria's speakeasy, and he found an antique pewter pendant amongst the broken glass. Look at the photographs."

"My sister…" Elijah sighed, looking over a handful of other small photographs that Giulia had found tucked in the back of the diary. He glanced at the back of some of them, finding a stranger's handwriting, feminine. Giulia turned to her own textbooks, highlighting as Elijah read through Stefan's confused diary-entries. Finally, he sighed, holding his place in the book with his thumb, gazing at the photographs of his entrancing young sister. "June, 1922. Three years. Only three years. I knew Mikael would not chase me for long, when he realised I did not intend to join them… But I confess I had expected Niklaus to last longer than three years before daggering our sister. Undoubtedly her affection for Stefan had a part to play in Rebekah being daggered. I imagine she did not outlast the night of the raid before Niklaus plunged the dagger into her chest."

"Elijah…" Giulia sighed. "Your family makes me think mine is _normal_."

He gave a soft grunt. "And yet, for all that they are…they are my family, still."

"And we stand by our families," Giulia murmured.

"No matter what," Elijah said, _even when they don't deserve us_ , went unsaid, but they both thought it. Elijah sighed. "I sent Rebekah off with Niklaus the night the opera-house burned, when our father came for us… I _gave_ her to him."

"Would he have let her go?"

"Never," Elijah said with certainty. He sighed. "In a thousand years, it was always Rebekah who stood by him. They never parted, no matter what he did to her."

"He doesn't deserve you."

* * *

She glanced up at the familiar noise, a melodic chiming like an alarm. She glanced at her phone, at her laptop – finally she realised the noise was coming from the attic. Hidden amongst the clutter of generations – she was slowly going through it, and Rose, who had taken up residence in Damon's bed, had started trying to organise things, but it was an arduous task – and protected by Sheila's magic to create a new, internal threshold only she could cross, she had set up Slater's computer system out of eyesight, out of reach.

They had been running her searches since she had plugged them in, recovering everything Elijah had wiped from the hard-drive from Slater's remote-server. She managed to navigate to the desk, using an old ottoman as a chair, and climbed on cross-legged.

Smiling, she tapped at the keyboard and the alarm stopped. Her programmes had worked. Of course, she knew they would, but it was satisfying all the same. She had created a programme that would search DMV records and security-cameras; she had found him earlier in the week, his face appearing on a CCTV camera on the street in a small town during a farmers' market on a busy Saturday morning. Like the Seventies, he still had longer hair. But he wore a t-shit with a family-owned farm's name and logo, like the younger-teenage boys around him who all looked startlingly like each other, like _him_. From that one image, she'd found the website for his farm-shop and café, owned and operated by "Will" and his sons and daughter. All _ten_ of them.

Some of his sons wore Coyotes Athletics t-shirts in a family-photo on the website – mother conspicuously absent – and from there she tracked his contact-info. The DMV gave an address in rural Pennsylvania seventeen miles from where Joshua Salvatore's car had been abandoned, but no phone-number. His farm-shop was open eight a.m. to six p.m. but she didn't want anyone else to know she was trying to contact him. From Fulton High's records, which she'd hacked into yesterday, she'd acquired his personal-email for school newsletters and athletics-teams updates.

Last night, she'd sent him an email. The subject title? 'NIKLAUS IS GOING TO LIFT ESTHER'S SPELL'.

She'd given the number of her dad's ancient _Nokia_ , which she had resuscitated for the purpose. The alarm was to tell her that William Michaels had opened the email. She eyed the _Nokia_ , waiting. After he'd read the brief email, he might take a look at the panoramic photograph attachment. And that would take some time to digest.

She settled in on the ottoman, creating a nest, and had fallen asleep when the old-school Nokia ringtone jerked her back to life, grating her nerves. The grey screen was illuminated in green, flashing; she glanced at the number, and accepted the call.

While Elijah had been scheming with his nefarious Southern witches, Giulia had spent _four hours_ on the phone with his estranged brother, taking notes. She'd only hung up because the Nokia had been beeping angrily at her, before it died. She'd told Elijah she had fallen asleep clearing the attic; and he'd told her he'd gone to bed early.

She fell asleep thinking how similar Willem's rich voice was to Elijah's, though he was completely the opposite in personality, extroverted – a flirt. He had a natural manner, utterly relaxed, good-humoured, feisty. And that was him _knowing_ about what happened to Esther, to Rollo, the lies his brother had told. His younger-brother had murdered _their_ parents. In his words; "That was a thousand years ago. I've created my own family since then."

He wanted no part in Elijah and Niklaus' war.

But he no way wanted Klaus to get off easily for what he'd done.

He had ten kids to think about, nine sons and a daughter between the ages of 21 and six. Giulia got all the gossip; he was proud of his kids. And that was weird; it could've been Dr Gilbert on the other end – a grown-adult, a _father_ proud of the people his children had grown into, involved in their lives, and happily so.

Curiously, she had asked, "Why did you leave your siblings when Marseille was held in siege?"

" _I made a promise_ ," Willem said softly. " _If Elijah will respect anything about my decision to leave the rest of the family, he will respect that_." Giulia nodded, agreeing; Elijah never broke his word either. And she guessed to whom Willem had made the promise.

"It was Lucrezia you made the promise to, wasn't it?" she said softly.

" _You know about Lucrezia_?"

"Elijah…unintentionally allowed me to see a few memories of Lucrezia," she said, clearing her throat, and Willem's rich laugh rumbled through the connection.

" _Mm. I can imagine what those memories were like. Did you need to rehydrate_?"

"Yup."

" _Lucrezia… She was not a woman whose bed men strayed from_ ," he said fondly.

"You speak as if you know." There was a brief pause, long enough that Giulia raised her eyebrows. " _Really_?!"

" _It was her birthday; I was the gift_ ," Willem said. Giulia grinned lewdly to herself.

"And how did Elijah feel about that?" she asked, wholly surprised.

" _We shared a very fervent night_ ," Willem said, and Giulia choked on the drink she had swigged from her sports-bottle. Her mind short-circuited. Elijah and Willem. _That lucky bitch_!

"That's not even fair – please tell me you're teasing!"

" _Not anymore_ ," Willem said, and Giulia shivered. She made a thoughtful noise, sitting back.

"I'd never have thought Elijah would like _sharing_ ," she said honestly. She never got that impression from him. Maybe multiple women, but never another man.

" _He doesn't_ ," Willem said drily. " _Or_ didn't _– luckily our involvement was in fighting for her_." She made a disappointed noise.

"Still very scintillating," she sighed lustily. "Lucky girl… All I can say is _my_ birthday-present had better be earth-shatteringly spectacular." Willem laughed. And things started slotting into place. Lucrezia; Willem leaving Marseille before his siblings had realised it was too late to go back for him; a promise. There was only one thing more important than one's siblings; and that was someone's _children_. Elijah had set Gyda free to let her live the life she deserved, unharmed by Klaus. He had sacrificed his happiness with her to ensure she lived beautifully, even without him.

Parents did anything to protect their children. Esther had turned hers into vampires; Elijah went without seeing his for decades so she could have everything she deserved; she believed Lucrezia had asked Willem to protect her children – who were _still alive_.

After experiencing Elijah's memories of his human-life, knowing Willem had separated from his siblings in the 1040s A.D. and slipped away from Elijah in the Seventies when they had met purely by chance in Manhattan, for the first time in centuries, she had asked him one last question, purely for Elijah's peace of mind, even if she'd never tell him she'd found and reached out to his brother; "Have you had a good life?"

" _I've had many great ones_ ," Willem answered. " _Thank you for asking; Elijah doesn't have to worry about me_."

"You're his little-brother; he'll always worry about you," Giulia said honestly. "Although his feelings were hurt when you stood him up."

" _Shaming me now_?" he'd teased. " _Picking my brain wasn't enough_?"

"Had to get the shot in there, as we're talking," Giulia shrugged.

" _I suppose that's fair_ ," Willem sighed. " _So he was there to meet Gyda_?"

The only person Willem seemed genuinely upset about Niklaus having killed was Gyda. Reading between the lines, he and Gyda had managed to find ways to stay in contact over the centuries; he had spent the Seventies in Manhattan and London, where Gyda lived, with Damon Salvatore. He'd called her due to lingering loyalty to Damon; she'd kept him on the phone for four-hours purely on her own merit.

In a thousand years, no-one had ever confronted him. She had, with such punishing accuracy he had been silent for a good five minutes after she just laid it all out there.

After extracting her vow that she would not draw him into the conflict or put his family in contact with him unless he wished it, he told her everything she wanted to know, confirming a lot of things she had guessed, illuminating other details, surprised she had guessed certain things, and uncomfortable with this knowledge she had.

* * *

"So…Elena's actually Jeremy's _cousin_ not his sister, her biological father is her uncle, and her birth-mother is Alaric Saltzman's first wife who Damon turned into a vampire, and Ric is now dating Elena and Jeremy's aunt, who used to sleep with Elena's biological father" Rose said, delicately tracing the curve of her wine-glass stem with her fingertips. "Damon turned Vicki Donovan into a vampire and then killed her; and her brother Matt was Elena's first boyfriend, and is now in an on-and-off thing with Caroline Forbes, who you said Tyler Lockwood has been making eyes at since his first werewolf transformation. Tyler is your ex-boyfriend."

"Just hearing you say all that out-loud, I have the least-complicated personal life ever," Giulia mused over her crab dip. She'd ordered one for herself; it was her favourite starter, and she was famished. Rose chuckled.

"It could only happen in a small town," she said, and Giulia smirked.

"True," she said softly.

"Thank you for telling me all this; I thought I should probably catch up on all the drama so I don't put my foot in it," Rose said, sipping her wine. "And thank you for meeting me, I thought it about time I thanked you properly for giving me houseroom."

"It's no imposition for me," Giulia said honestly, smiling. "How are you settling in?"

"Well. Your library is phenomenal, considering," Rose said warmly. "The water-pressure is unequal, and my housemates are tantalising."

"Yuck." She placed her hands over her ears, a purple nacho sticking out of her mouth. Rose grinned, sipping her wine.

He watched across the room, debating whether to interrupt. He could hear what they were talking about – Giulia was catching up her new friend on the gossip. Not important – Giulia wouldn't mind being interrupted. But something about her pretty friend with her spiky hair and pretty collarbones made his hackles rise.

Tyler was too agitated not to say anything, though; he'd bitten his tongue every time Caroline asked why he was so distracted. But if that legend about werewolves was true Tyler didn't want Caroline involved. He sighed, hitched his gym-bag higher over his shoulder and made his way across the restaurant to Giulia in her dad's favourite booth. He could smell her perfume, her crab-dip, and how tired she was, even though she looked as fierce and beautiful as she always did.

Her friend smelled like death warmed over. It made his nose twitch, he wanted to sneeze. It was the same reaction he got to Caroline, but he was starting to get desensitised to her, he spent so much time with her. They'd never been close before, never _hung out_ ; since his transformation she hadn't left him alone – and he hadn't wanted her to. Without Giulia at school, there was only Caroline who _knew_ , and he thought the two girls had made a pact to look after him or something. Caroline always asked how he was doing, if he needed anything – even just to talk. Giulia had implied she'd been sick the night he changed; Caroline had told him at school a couple days later that Giulia had cried.

Giulia never _cried_. Not even her dad's funeral – and _he'd_ hidden his tears that afternoon. Zach Salvatore hadn't deserved to die, especially not in the way he had – and Giulia deserved to have her dad around still. As much as she looked like she was handling things on her own, Tyler knew her; she was struggling. This going to UV in Richmond, all this supernatural crap, _killing_ vampires, pulling strings – his chilled girlfriend would never have gotten involved. She used to be so laidback she was horizontal. She was Zen; he was a hurricane. They'd worked together because of that. He'd messed that up pretty bad, had hurt them both, and there was no going back; especially because he could scent another guy all over her. He wasn't jealous of the guy; he just hoped he appreciated her more than he had.

When he approached their table, the other girl – a woman, really; even though she looked to be in her mid-twenties, he could tell she was a lot older just by her eyes, mature and depthless – looked up, and smiled warmly. She had an English accent when she spoke; "Hello again. It's lovely to see you on your feet again."

"Uh…thanks," Tyler said uncertainly, glancing at Giulia.

"Tyler, this is Rose," Giulia introduced them informally, crunching a nacho loaded with warm, cheesy crab dip. "Rose, the Teen Wolf."

"Very nice to meet you," Rose smiled, chuckling softly, and shook his hand.

"Hey," Tyler nodded. She really was very pretty. But his nose kind of burned.

"What's up?" Giulia asked, glancing at him with those pale eyes as she scooped more crab-dip up onto a nacho.

"Uh…kinda need some advice," he admitted. Giulia quirked a dramatic eyebrow.

"If this has anything to do with Caroline –"

"What?! No!" Tyler blurted, flushing, and he caught the smirk on Rose's face, _and_ Giulia's.

"Okay. Then what?"

"Look, this…this woman showed up at my house a couple days ago, just rang the bell," he said, agitated. Okay, so the woman had been hot – but he'd gotten this sense that…she was like him. And that put him on the defensive.

"What woman?"

"She said she's a friend of Mason's from Florida," Tyler shrugged. "Apparently he never made it back there."

"Well, of course he didn't," Giulia said, as if this should have been obvious. She tended to forget not everyone was as clever as she was; most of the time, that was okay with a lot of them. Caroline had told him she wouldn't want to be as clever with Giulia; there had to be backlash. Tyler's dad had wondered whether Giulia was on the more subtle end of the autistic spectrum; Tyler had retorted why that should matter. But he could see it, and it had really started showing up since her dad was killed. Her coping mechanisms, her obsessions, the intense bond with Caroline – some people might even call it _dependence_ – and passively letting her friendships with Bonnie and Elena devolve until they no longer existed. Tyler doubted Giulia's dad would've ever gone to a doctor about it; she was who she was, and he had loved her no matter what. He'd never have forced her into behavioural therapy or shove drugs down her throat to change her into what other people said was normal; Giulia was exceptional. If Tyler hadn't known that himself, his mom saying it so often would've drilled into him. She'd been more upset than he'd been at the time when Giulia dumped his ass. When he'd finally confessed to why, his mom had sighed, unhappy, and said, " _You're just like your father_ " in a way he never wanted her to compare them ever again. "Where's this girl now?"

"According to my mom, she's practically been camped out by our house," Tyler said; Giulia could imagine how much that set his mom's teeth on edge. "She's even complained to Caroline's Mom, but this girl went to the cops about opening a missing persons report."

"Why does she care where Mason is?" Giulia frowned. Tyler glanced around the restaurant uneasily.

"I _think_ she's like me," he admitted, and Giulia's eyebrows rose. Otherwise her face was like marble, not showing anything.

"Okay."

"That's it?"

"What –?" Giulia looked startled, glancing from him to Rose and back. "Uh…what else?"

"Well – that's it!" Tyler blurted, confused. He stared at her.

"I don't know what you're asking me, Tyler," Giulia said gently.

"I don't know – do _something_!"

"What? We can't have her assassinated because she's come looking for your uncle…I suppose," Giulia sighed.

"Look, I just – I don't get a good feeling about her being here, and you said Mason left because of his psycho-ex –"

"You're paraphrasing – but yes, that works," Giulia interrupted, frowning gently.

"I just don't want Mason to get into trouble because of some chick he left behind in Florida when he came back to town," Tyler said, sighing heavily. "If there's something you can do to make sure that chick he's running from doesn't find him…"

"Oh, she's taken care of," Giulia said confidently, waving a hand. "Alright, I'll talk to Liz."

"Why do you need to talk to my mom?"

"Hey, Caroline!" Giulia beamed, as Caroline bounced into the booth next to her, stripping off her jacket.

"Hey. Hi, Tyler," Caroline beamed, and Tyler nodded, feeling flushed and uncomfortable. "So what's going on?"

"Some girl has shown up on Tyler's porch looking for Mason," Giulia told her.

"A guy like that, I'd chase after him if he was mine, too," Caroline smiled, searching the menu. "Hey, wait, wasn't he with Katherine?"

"Tyler thinks this girl is a werewolf," Giulia said quietly.

"Do Stefan and Damon know?" Caroline asked, her eyes wide.

"Let's not send up the WonderTwin hero-hair signal just yet," Giulia said gently, chuckling as she scooped up some more crab-dip. "Oh, I'm glad you're here, Caroline – I wanted you to be there when I gave you this, Tyler."

"What?" Tyler asked curiously. He hadn't seen Giulia in a few days – going to different schools meant he really appreciated the fact that Giulia wasn't around all the time. He couldn't shake Caroline; she was like a golden shadow everywhere he looked. But she was the only one at school, in his life besides Giulia, who _knew_. She and Giulia had witnessed his transformation; no-one else could possibly understand what he had gone through. The fact that there was someone close by who _knew_ …that meant everything to him right now. Someone he could talk to when he freaked out in the middle of Biology, and was afraid of his training in case he hurt someone – he'd put Giulia in the hospital with concussion and bruised ribs! What if he hurt someone he couldn't explain things to?

Giulia unceremoniously placed a ring in his palm. He hissed; it stung, and he shot Giulia an accusatory look as he hastily dropped the ring on the table.

"What the hell is that?"

"You need to put it on," Giulia said, sighing and rolling her eyes.

"It hurts!"

"It won't," Giulia said coaxingly, offering him the ring again. It was the kind of thing he'd pick out for himself, half sand-coloured stone, half polished wood with a thin band of gold binding them together. He took it on faith, and did what Giulia said. He pushed the ring on his middle-finger where it lodged neatly. And it didn't hurt. He felt – _different_. Almost relieved, like when he had finished his transformation, a huge weight lifted off his shoulders.

"Your eyes," Caroline murmured, peering curiously at him.

"What about them?" Tyler asked anxiously, glancing over his shoulder; he didn't want anyone in the booths noticing his eyes glowed bright-amber in the dim restaurant.

"They glowed when you put the ring on," Giulia said softly. "It doesn't hurt, does it."

"No," Tyler frowned, glancing down at his hand. "Why did it the first time?"

"The stone was legendarily used to ward off werewolves, sort of the way wolfsbane does," Giulia said quietly. "I found reference to it in Isobel Flemming's and my own research and managed to track some down, it's not very rare."

"Really?" Caroline asked curiously, and Giulia nodded.

"There's an entire cave-system of it here in town," Giulia said. "Centuries ago the Natives who lived on this land used to hide down in the tunnels during the full-moon to be safe from the werewolves. The caves are actually made of feldspar, which refracts moonlight. Moonstones, which are a sodium potassium aluminium silicate, are a form of feldspar."

"You are a freak," Caroline said, with a fond smile. Giulia nodded, not disagreeing.

"I asked a friend to make the ring," she explained softly. "That's why you had to go through the shift at all; Miss Sheila needed the light of the full-moon to spell it. The ring will stop you from having to transform. It should also temper your more aggressive instincts, and your strength."

"I won't have to turn again?" Tyler barely breathed, processing.

"Not if you don't want to," Giulia said, shrugging a shoulder. "And we can play in the ring without you fracturing my skull. So that's another upside."

"Yeah," Tyler grinned; he liked sparring with Giulia, she was fun. Neither of them pulled their punches, and they brought out the competitiveness in each other, in a way Giulia was never competitive with anyone else. He didn't like the idea of putting anyone in the hospital; and he could wear the ring under his gloves.

Caroline beamed at him. Giulia crunched on a crab-loaded nacho and he shifted his bag, said a polite goodbye to Giulia's friend Rose, and wandered off, muttering about practice, amazed. The ring didn't burn anymore, but he knew it was there because it was new.

He didn't have to _shift_ again!

But he noticed that woman, Jules, watching Giulia, Caroline and Rose across the restaurant with a nasty look on her face as she wiped her mouth with a napkin, the black guy she was with glaring too. Knowing he'd get his ass handed to him if he was late to practice again, he took out his phone and sent Giulia a text while he walked to his car, hoping Giulia would know what to do. He didn't like keeping his mother in the dark when he _knew_ why this woman was in town, but he…couldn't imagine having to tell – or worse, _show_ – his mom what he was. What he'd done.

He saw more of them over the next couple days, Jules and her friend who put him on edge. With school and practice he didn't have time to really think about anything else but trying to keep his GPA where he needed to maintain it so he could play; Caroline helped a lot, inviting herself over for impromptu study-sessions. Tyler got the feeling she missed Giulia, who sometimes didn't get home from Richmond until midnight, and was too busy trying to save them all to go shopping with her. Caroline didn't worry she was being left behind; she worried that Giulia was headed for some severe psychological fracture. A quarter-life crisis.

Well, if she did, it was a long time coming. What was it, nine month since her dad was killed? Tyler was only functioning because his dad had been a dick; Giulia had _adored_ her dad.

Tyler had always figured if Giulia went crazy she'd end up some super-epic villain in a superhero movie as empress of the criminal underworld or something. She'd never be able to handle a nine-to-five or taking direction from other people.

* * *

He sighed, thinking of the homework he had to do, Caroline insisting he go to the Sixties dance to blow off some steam, and was already drooling over the steak he was going to order, when he frowned, his instincts prickling, and he caught a familiar scent. Ever since he triggered the curse, he had been suffering an onslaught of smells, sounds, even textures of different things felt different to him now. He knew Caroline's scent, and Giulia's, which he was still trying to figure out, he knew his mom and was coming to know Stefan Salvatore's because the guy kept checking in with him about how he was _feeling_ – really just code for whether he and his brother Damon should be worried about having to kill him so he didn't bite them. Neither Caroline nor Giulia had concealed from him the fact that Damon would be _more_ than happy to pluck his heart out of his chest and ram it down his throat if he so much as marked his territory on their begonias.

He knew Jules' scent now. Annoyed, thinking of his dinner, he scowled and turned on his heel, making Jules stop short, flustered at being caught out.

"Why are you following me?" he asked, not mincing his words.

She gave him an apologetic smile. "I, uh – I was actually heading to The Grill to eat, too. But I'm glad I ran into you." He didn't answer, just stared at her. He'd gotten very good at the silent glare that usually prompted people to blurt out what was on their minds. Caroline called it his resting-bitch-face. He'd learned it from his mother.

"I heard the Sheriff's Department won't be opening an investigation into Mason's disappearance," Jules said lightly. There was an accusatory tone to her words, and he didn't like the look on her face. Everything had been thinly-veiled threats and half-truths since she showed up on his porch, and his instincts were telling him that firstly she was like him, and secondly he shouldn't trust her.

"That's because he's not missing," Tyler said belligerently. He got a weird feeling off her, and with everything going on he didn't want anything to do with anyone from Mason's life in Florida. Giulia and Caroline had told him enough to convince him he didn't want anything to do with all this; and with the ring Giulia had given him, he didn't have to. "Why do you care, anyway? Are you his girlfriend?" He knew perfectly well Mason had been dating the evil vampire who'd made things happen to trigger his curse – and Mason's as well, Giulia was sure.

"Just a friend," Jules shrugged, hands in her pockets, looking relaxed.

"Look, you can't keep bugging my mom, okay; my dad just died, she doesn't need you scaring her about Mason," Tyler said. "So whatever it is you're after, just ask for it and leave." One search on Google and people would know Mason was from money; he came from a family of historical mayors in a small town, they had owned the largest plantation and had connections to the first Governor of Virginia. He doubted Mason would really be associated with anyone really bad, but money tended to bring out the worst in people.

"I'm not after anything, Tyler," Jules said gently.

"Really? You drive all the way from Florida with _muscle_ , for no reason," Tyler scowled, indicating Jules' angry friend lurking behind her, who shifted, glaring back.

"We just want to make sure he's okay," Jules assured him, glancing over her shoulder at her friend.

"He's fine. He's trying to keep his head down so his psycho-ex doesn't try and murder him," Tyler said honestly. "If you're really his friend, you'll let him be – and stop freaking out my mom like he's chopped up in Freddie Krueger's backyard. We don't need that."

"You know about Mason's girlfriend? Katherine?" Jules' eyes sparked with recognition.

"Yeah. Mason found out she was using him; he skipped town to blow off some steam. I'm guessing Florida's the first place she'd look for him," Tyler said, as the two shared a look. The weird thing was, he didn't even need to say anything about vampires or werewolves and Mason's relationship drama was actually… _normal_. It happened. A crazy ex could have been the sum total of Mason's drama, a crazy vindictive ex he needed to get away from. _He_ knew, and if his instincts were right, _they'd_ know, that Mason's problems were a lot more dangerous.

"But you've heard from him?" Jules said.

"Yeah. He's Mason; he's chilled," Tyler shrugged. Mason had left a voicemail on his home-phone last night, telling them he was okay and not to worry; his mother had had Sheriff Forbes listen to the voicemail after panicking about how to go about reporting a missing-person. Since they'd had contact, they could rule out that Mason was missing, and Sheriff Forbes had advised that Mason was a grown man, and if he wanted to stay in contact, that was his prerogative. Tyler's mom knew better than to think regular updates on Mason's life would ever happen, he had always done his own thing, and Tyler got the occasional birthday-card. He just wished Mason didn't need Giulia threatening him to call home; he knew Giulia had called Mason. She'd given him the phone he had used to leave the voicemail.

"Well…I guess I'm sorry we bothered you," Jules smiled, but it wasn't an honest smile. "I'll apologise to your mom for scaring her."

"I'd appreciate that," Tyler told her.

"Just – if Mason calls again, tell him we're in town, and we've been worried about him," Jules said.

"You don't need to be," Tyler told them. He didn't mention that he'd also received an email from Mason telling him he was sorry about his curse being triggered, and that he was coming back to Mystic Falls to help him. But he was making his way carefully, and didn't want too many people to know. "You wasted your time coming here."

"Maybe," Jules shrugged. "Maybe not. We'll see you around, Tyler." He'd prefer if he didn't, but he thought it'd be rude to say so.

This town had way too many secrets and he and his friends didn't need this aggravation too.

* * *

 **A.N.** : Introduction to Jules. As Mason _is_ still alive, things will unfold a little differently.


	33. Dangerous Ground

**A.N.** : Okay, it seems to me there needs to be some clarification. When I write that Willem was Lucrezia's birthday-present, this does not in any way mean there was a love-triangle between them, or that Elijah played second-string. _IT WAS A THREESOME_! One night only. Willem was just a bit of fun one night for a bit of a change. Lucrezia was only ever Elijah's.

* * *

 **Dangerous Beauty**

 _33_

 _Dangerous Ground_

* * *

The scariest day was when they came to school.

Maybe it was some pack-mentality thing, maybe there was just way too much testosterone and frustration and anger flying around, but it became clear very soon that Jules hadn't come to town without backup. He guessed _were_ wolves travelled in packs, too.

Four angry-looking guys came to school and were waiting for Tyler by his locker – he guessed they'd sniffed it out like trained police-dogs looking for drugs, and they hadn't appreciated the comparison – and one had grabbed him by the collar of his letterman and shoved him against the lockers so hard they had dented.

The school had gone on lockdown. After, Caroline had whispered to him that Giulia, who was in class in Richmond, had called Sheriff Forbes and the principal of the school (who was on the Council and a friend of her dad's from their high-school football-team). Caroline was a little flushed at calling her best-friend first before even thinking of calling her mom, the _sheriff_ , but Tyler didn't think she was wrong not to want her mom involved; Sheriff Forbes' job was dangerous enough without adding werewolves into the mix.

The four guys who'd come to campus without I.D., ready to tear his head off for answers about Mason, had been more freaked out by the lockdown than he'd been, and this was the kind of stuff excessive repeats of _One Tree Hill_ (he'd always loved Peyton) made him nervous about lax gun-control and _strangers_.

It was Sheriff Forbes and her supernatural squad who stormed the hallway that hadn't managed to clear. There were only a handful of other kids in the hall – and putting on her superhero panties, Caroline was in those brief, lifelong five minutes, as tough as her cop mom; she used vamp-speed and compulsion to get the other kids blockaded in the restroom, quiet, while her mom and the deputies tactically entered the hallway, guns aimed at the werewolves. The only witness was Tyler; but the other corridors were full of kids, and unless they wanted a SWAT team to storm the school and their names blacked out from news-reports about another breach of high-school campus security, they had to go quietly.

Nobody wanted to be known as the guy who'd taken school-kids hostage. They'd been cuffed and carted off to be booked in by the Sheriff's Department without a word, and Tyler hoped the guys had taken the hint; they had picked on the wrong kid. He had backup. He had… _friends_.

But it was scary, that they'd come to school. He didn't think it was necessary, and couldn't figure out why they cared so much about Mason being out on his own. Tyler hadn't told Jules that Mason was coming _back_ – and talking to Giulia, who'd asked if they wanted her to skip her evening class to come and spend time with them after school, which had been cancelled for the rest of the day after the 'drill', she was glad. If there was something going on with Jules and the other wolves she'd brought into town, she had a feeling they might need to keep Mason's return a surprise they hadn't anticipated.

He was still reeling from Caroline's reaction to him kissing her.

Maybe he shouldn't have. He was just – confused. Risking helping him the night he turned, sticking by him even though he was pretty much known as the biggest dick at school, getting those kids out of the way when things might've gotten dangerous. She was tough and feisty and exasperated and _honest_ : " _Everyone just needs to stop kissing me_!" she'd blurted, flustered, after telling him he couldn't kiss her.

He hadn't expected _that_ reaction – but then he hadn't waited on her porch intending to kiss her; it sort of just happened. Everything he'd been feeling over the last couple weeks had been churning inside him, and what happened at school had just kind of set it off – he'd kissed Caroline in a reaction to how… _amazing_ she was. He'd never seen it before – but she'd never been this way until she was turned into a vampire.

They were both connected as victims of Katherine. But there was no way Caroline Forbes would ever _be_ a victim. She made the best out of every situation, and when Giulia had offered to skip her class, Caroline had ordered her to the mall for some serious consumerism.

If he'd thought her friends being arrested would've scared off Jules, at least made a point, he might've been wrong; she had the nerve to call his cell, asking if he'd meet her at The Grill to talk.

"You _know_ Mason doesn't wanna be found," he said, glaring at her, refusing the seat she'd offered him. "Why are you still here?"

"Tyler…please sit down," Jules said, giving him an earnest look. "I'm sorry about my friends coming to your school, I had no idea things would escalate so fast."

"Four huge angry-looking guys muscle their way into a high-school hallway, you _don't_ think something's gonna happen? You know two-thirds of high-schools across America have active-shooter drills, right?" Tyler blurted angrily.

"Tyler – please," Jules urged. "Just sit, and I can try and explain everything."

"What is there to explain? Mason's not here, this isn't your home, and it's clear you're not _welcome_ ," Tyler said honestly. He knew Sheriff Forbes was unofficially holding the werewolves in antique cells beneath what had been the old jailhouse, as a point. They hadn't officially been booked, nothing had made it to the news, and the principal had made up a cover for the false-alarm, but praised everyone's quick responses.

"I know that," Jules said, with a sad smile. "We're used to it. Tyler… I know about Mason." She said it softly, under her breath, and Tyler tried not to show a reaction. "And you."

"You know _what_?" Tyler asked, giving her an unimpressed look. He was channelling his best Giulia – she had the most insane poker-face, it was actually scary.

"I know you're a werewolf," she said softly. "And I know your little friend Caroline is a vampire. The dark-haired one, Giulia, I'm not sure about, but something's off about her."

"How do you know about Caroline?" Tyler asked, stifling his alarm. It was okay for these guys to go after him, but _Caroline_ – she'd _helped_ him. Risked her _life_ to make sure he didn't go through his transformation alone.

"You can't sniff them out?" Jules asked, surprised. Jules' expression fell, softening, as Tyler avoided her eye; he _could_ sniff 'them' out, vampires, he was just confused half the time because there were so _many_ scents to single out. "Oh my god…you are _brand_ -new. How many times have you turned?" Her eyes widened, she reached across the table to clutch his wrist. "Hey, I can help you."

"Really? You know, I don't think I want the kind of _friends_ you have," Tyler said.

"Tyler…there are things about this world, about who you are, that you need to know – for your own survival," Jules urged. "A vampire will _never_ be your friend. It's our _nature_ to be enemies."

"You know how stupid that sounds?" Tyler scoffed. Giulia had told him the origin of the vampire species. He doubted Jules knew vampires were created to protect a family _from_ werewolves.

"You need to leave here, it's not safe," Jules said earnestly.

"I'm in high-school," Tyler said, stifling the urge to roll his eyes. "Triple-varsity athlete. I've got another year of school and I want a scholarship. I killed a girl who used to cheer me on during games; and the only people who know that are the two people who helped me through my first transition – and that's Giulia and Caroline. Caroline, who you said can never be my friend because of what we are – she stayed with me even knowing that if I bit her, she'd die. Now I don't know a lot about being a werewolf, or about being a good friend, but if those two can watch what I went through and why, and still stick by me, then I think that is a pretty good friend." He paused, giving her a challenging look. "Yours came to my school, harassed me. You came and upset my _mom_. Now you're trying to get inside my head, impressionable young kid, doesn't know the ropes, you can take him under your wing? No. Whatever beef you have with vampires, that's your own; I don't want any part of it. I just want to maintain my GPA, get my pick of scholarships and hope I can actually be worthy of Giulia and Caroline's friendship and make my mom proud, because I sure as hell haven't in the past."

Jules stared. "They stayed with you?"

"Yeah. Pretty ballsy, huh. See, _that's_ a friend," Tyler said agitatedly. "See, you _don't_ know who I am – or who _they_ are. But you know what, the way your friends treated me, how you upset my mother, I already know I don't wanna know you."

"Tyler – look, it's…not just about you, okay," Jules said anxiously, reaching out to stop him climbing out of his seat. "Lycanthropes…we live by a code of honour, we take care of each other. And there are others...like Mason…who think the old rivalry should be allowed to drift into the past, if we have any chance at survival, of increasing our numbers to what they were before the vampires… Mason was never the alpha of our pack, but there were plenty of people who thought he had the right attitude about things, and were more than happy to see him as a leader."

"Mason, taking responsibility?" Tyler smirked. _Unlikely_.

"Triggering his curse changed him," Jules said, her tone almost stern, like he'd offended her. Hell, she probably had a right to be offended; she knew Mason a hell of a lot better than Tyler did. "He's the most relaxed guy I've ever met, he's practically horizontal – but when he sets his mind to something, he sticks with it; and if someone threatens what he values… Over the last few months, our alpha managed to push out the werewolves who favoured Mason's perspective on things, live-and-let-live…"

"What, your friends are worried he's gone to find his friends and stage a coup?" Tyler snorted.

"Yes."

"Well, he's not. He's on the run from Katherine Pierce," Tyler informed her, not fighting the urge to roll his eyes this time. "She _triggered_ his curse so she could get close to him; now he's on the run because Giulia managed to flip him."

Jules stared at him. She wouldn't know the truth about Mason killing his friend Jimmy. Giulia had figured it out, though. That was how she'd manage to break whatever loyalty Mason had had toward Katherine. "He should've killed her."

"Mason already killed one person, and you and I both know what he got for it," Tyler snapped, scowling. "I don't know how you become supernatural and suddenly it's okay to just kill people who annoy you. I don't get it. And I don't want any part of it. I appreciate you being concerned about me, but I'm not on my own. I have friends, and I have my mom, and I have a future. Just…don't go asking for trouble." That was the best form of goodbye she'd get from him, given the circumstances. He didn't care to hear about her grisly murder on the TV, but he couldn't say he wouldn't be happy to see the tail-lights of her car fading into the distance. He'd been on red-alert since he'd first seen her on his porch, and she hadn't done anything to stop him worrying.

After she watched Tyler leave, Rose listened as the woman had an hour-long conversation with someone on her cell-phone. Her voice was still gentle and coaxing, easily-confident, but she betrayed herself with her fidgety hands, fingers fiddling anxiously with anything she could touch, and her expression was worried. She tried to convince what sounded like her boyfriend to stay in Florida, that he had nothing to worry about where Mason's disappearance was concerned; he wasn't getting in touch with the others, he was just laying low from a vampire.

It sounded like she'd lost the argument. By the time she packed up her things and left, Jules looked worried and unwound.

Rose dialled Giulia's number, and grimaced guiltily, flushing, as a breathless Giulia growled an annoyed greeting. She had obviously interrupted something exquisite. But she thought Giulia would want to know; "There are more werewolves coming to town, Jules' friends. Somebody is bound to get hurt; and judging by her boyfriend's phone-voice, that someone's probably going to be someone we know."

"Wonderful," Giulia groaned. She sighed heavily. "Thank you for telling me."

"You're welcome – now go back and play."

"I _will_."

She had learned early on that Damon tended to make emotional decisions; and she didn't need Giulia to ask her not to, to keep it from him that more werewolves were coming to town. He already wanted to rip Jules' head off just for being a werewolf and thus, a danger to his life.

* * *

They had already been on the road when she'd called, and given who he'd told her was in the RV with him, making the trip, she was sure this would turn out badly. Part of her thought she should have just kept it to herself, told them Mason was dead. Put an end to this ridiculous fear Brady had of Mason making moves against him.

She wished he'd talk to someone – address his PTSD and let him start to heal. But he'd never been the same since coming home from Iraq, had never recovered from having to discharge himself; he'd _loved_ everything about being a soldier. It was his calling. But his nature and his calling weren't compatible; he couldn't be a werewolf and a soldier touring in Afghanistan, trying to make a difference. How could he possibly begin to explain to his superior officers what he went through every month, what he became? So he'd come home, and taken a job as a bouncer. He hated it, but he could rearrange his shifts to make allowance for the full-moon, and sniffed out any drugs or spiked drinks before anyone got hurt. He wasn't freeing villages from terrorists, but in a small everyday way, he was making a difference.

It wasn't enough. He wanted them strong, able to defend themselves, he believed in protecting what they had, and wanted to try to earn more for them, create better lives for their kids – he had a daughter in Florida he rarely saw, too conscious that he might hurt her, that he couldn't be reliable because of the full-moon. In Jules' opinion, his daughter might've been the best thing for his recovery; but he didn't want her to have anything to do with _them_ , and that hurt her. She was of the opinion that they could all handle the full-moon better than a lot people did; they were just too lazy to try and make it work. Unlike vampires they weren't prevented from going out in the sun; they had one _night_ a month where they turned into rabid monsters. Rarely she allowed herself out into the wild; there was a favourite national park she loved to roam, and in Brady's company, their experiences of the shift were different to what they'd first experienced.

He'd always been stubborn. Even knowing their lineage, he had been determined since they were fifteen years old that he'd be a soldier. His dad had been a Marine – he got the gene from his mother, who'd been a functioning nurse for over thirty years in spite of the curse – and he had always looked up to him, long after he'd been killed in action. They'd been raised knowing their lineage, the danger; he wouldn't listen. Brady wanted to be a Marine, and for a while, he was. And he was a good one. An engineer, but he wore the uniform with pride. He still kept it in his wardrobe, pressed, in a protective garment-bag. Wore it every Memorial Day. An engineer, he was never supposed to be in real danger of triggering the curse; during an ambush, he had reacted on instinct alone, his only thought to survive, and to protect those around him who were bleeding on the ground. He had picked up someone else's gun, and fired. He'd been discharged a week later with severe PTSD, so bad he could barely function. Her heart had broken.

Ever since, he'd run their pack like a unit. To the outside world, he was all business; to them, there was a wary gentleness. It had been over five years since he became their alpha; she didn't have any regrets. But she worried how things would play out between him and Mason; he had convinced himself Mason, the most relaxed guy she had ever met, wanted to be the alpha. Disdained Brady's perspective and thought he wasn't doing what he should to protect the pack. Mason was just different, that was all. He thought it was wiser to save his energy for the battles he chose, rather than go out and pick fights that had historically always ended with their numbers being decimated. They'd lost a dozen friends in the last twelve months alone.

She worried. About Brady coming to town; about what he'd do when he got here; and who he'd bring with him. She'd never say anything to him in front of the others, but behind closed doors they'd had it out more than a few times about the direction he was pushing the pack, the friends he had pushed out, and the kind of people they were left with.

It wasn't a wonder Mason hadn't come back; and she got the feeling Tyler sensed what kind of people her pack-mates were.

But Brady was the last of her family, a broken reminder of what they used to be, what they'd had. She wouldn't abandon him; she just wished she could help him. A powerful guy in a desperate situation, there was no talking him out of things. Because he had power, there was a stoic strength to him, and he appealed to like-minded people, to the angry, frustrated ones. It wasn't what their pack had started out as, but he'd managed to push out the decent ones, turning the more into a military unit, focused and trained, actively seeking out conflict and taking satisfaction from results. He'd never enjoyed cruelty before triggering the curse; but in doing so he'd shed the skin of who he used to be. Crippled by the change, everything he'd wanted had been ripped away from him. That had left him bitter and dangerous. Their natural enemies gave him an outlet for that quiet rage, and he took it out on any vampire who crossed his path. He scared her; but she loved him.

And she worried what he'd do with Tyler. Fear had a way of warping people, made them do things they ordinarily wouldn't, and Brady was deathly afraid that Mason could take the only thing he had left; the pack. Relaxed, sociable, open-minded, charming, Mason was everything Brady had once been, and everything he hadn't managed to hold onto after triggering his curse. He saw that as weakness – his own; he was afraid Mason was stronger than him because he hadn't lost himself.

And Tyler Lockwood seemed to be the same as his uncle.

But Brady could use him, an overwhelmed _kid_ , to get to Mason.

Jules knew that; so did Brady. And that had everything to do with the battered Seventies RV that had once belonged to Brady's parents, tucked deep in the woods, seemingly abandoned. That RV was pretty much a manifestation of how their lives had devolved; when she was a kid, they'd used it for vacations. Brady's mom had made cakes for the week, his dad had taught him to grill, and there was a tiny vase of flowers on the spotless table where they used to play Monopoly. Brady had always been a bad loser.

She sighed, wandering over to the RV. The scent of him clung to the grass by the door, which was locked. "Brady?" She turned, and jumped, smiling; Brady's stern, chiselled face softened into a smile, and she leaned in for a kiss. "This was a hard place to find."

"Better to stay off the radar," Brady murmured. "You sure this kid's like us?"

"He's gone through the turn once," Jules told him.

"So he triggered it after Mason came up here," Brady said, sharp eyes lingering on her face. "You think Mason put him up to it?"

"He wouldn't do that," Jules said gently. "He hates what he is; you know that. He wouldn't wish what we are on anyone." Brady frowned into the distance.

"And vampires?"

"This is their territory," Jules said, with a sigh. This wasn't like Miami, where vampires owned all the real-estate, the clubs, and the werewolves roamed through the undeveloped woods, or New Orleans, where vampires and witches enjoyed drunken revelry and a relative peace while the werewolf clan lived in a cursed purgatory; but there were vampires living here, wealthy, well-connected, they had _lives_ – she'd guess the little blonde was a newbie-vamp, so vain she was enthralled by the idea of always being able to fit into her cheerleading uniform and had begged to be turned. There were no other packs for _counties_ ; this, due to sheer absence of werewolves, made it vampire territory. And they had the advantage of knowing this place. But they adapted for survival; they _learned_ , and quickly. "And I know how we get Mason's nephew."

Tyler Lockwood was Brady's leverage; if he was the means to helping Brady settle his anxiety about Mason making a power-play against him, Jules would do what was necessary. She didn't like it; but she loved Brady more than she was uncomfortable about leveraging a teenage-boy over his uncle, who she actually liked.

"You hear that?" Brady raised his voice, and Jules rolled her eyes as she heard soft rustling. "Told you." He glanced back at Jules. "She's the only one I trust to get things done." He lowered his voice, his smile less chilling. "You always were smarter than me." Jules gave a shrug. He was the grunt; she was the paralegal.

"So who's here?" she asked, glancing around.

"I am _never_ getting a car with that psycho ever again!" She stifled the urge to roll her eyes in aggravation as the familiar voice, drawling and mumbling, grated on her nerves. She should've known; wherever the boys went, _she_ went. Hayley was one of those girls who was always hanging around the guys, roughhousing, physically flirtatious, riling the guys' girlfriends up, had a bad reputation because she was oblivious to the hurt she caused. It was the downside to having to think of herself first for such a long time, and for realising young that she got more from sharing her honey than at swatting the flies.

She took care of the guys, and they took care of her.

Stevie's eyes followed the beautiful Hayley as he skulked nervously behind her. At the sight of him, Jules glanced at Brady. Stevie…had a lot of issues, lycanthropy aside. Schizophrenic, eerily comfortable with _punishment_ , he was not someone it was easy to know, and he made most people uncomfortable. But he was wicked clever and completely desensitised to violence; he was Brady's go-to for the really grisly stuff even they balked at. Stevie _enjoyed_ it.

Her two least-favourite people. Great. The obnoxious, coquettish Hayley, and Psycho Stevie. Not the best fighters, they were more a liability than an asset. Hayley wasn't a fighter, she had no interest in learning and she didn't know how to commit to anything. She was thoughtless. And Stevie…

She shot a sly look at Brady, whose face remained impassive, but she sighed and forced a smile. "Didn't think you'd come."

"It's a cute town," Hayley smiled broadly. "Nice choice."

"Not many bars to dance on here," Jules remarked; Hayley made her money pouring drinks, flashing her cleavage and her pretty hazel eyes and dancing on flaming bars. Jules wasn't a snob, particularly, but Hayley wasn't the kind of girl you were proud to have as a friend, her behaviour reflected badly and Jules knew she'd be shocked at half the things she knew Hayley got up to if she were _her_ daughter. And, all things considered, Hayley had had as normal an upbringing as they had. Two parents who loved her, a good school, a good _life_ ; she had no excuses. But she had left home too early to truly learn responsibility, maturity, to stick with something for her own benefit even though she thought it was soul-sucking. They all had their crosses to bear.

"Give me a day," Hayley smirked, eyes drifting to Brady. Jules wasn't an idiot; Hayley carried a huge torch for him. She was just too afraid of Jules to make a move; but she'd made her way through the single guys in the pack, switching up her favourite every few weeks. It was good she was around to let the guys channel some of their frustration, but her behaviour caused its own drama, problems they didn't need while they tried to keep the pack together, _alive_.

With all the others he had brought with him, seasoned soldiers in his militia, Brady had chosen the slut and the psycho. She guessed Hayley would keep the guys out of trouble with the locals, they had rules and Jules' grand-plan did not involve forcibly expanding the werewolf gene-pool by leaving little gifts in different zip-codes, only to return twenty years later to purposely trigger the curse. The idea had been discussed before. And Stevie's speciality was in convincing people either to talk – or not to.

They laid low until they couldn't stand campfire food any longer. None of them were used to camping out for an extended period and the novelty of the great outdoors was dwindling, the guys missing their game-consoles – and their girlfriends. Only Hayley wandered off into town occasionally, keeping her head down, but Jules had pointed out Tyler when they drove past the high-school, and Jules got a feeling Hayley liked the look of him. Hayley didn't have history with their pack, she was what they knew as a transient – never in one place for long, migrating between different packs. Young, with no ties, it happened. One day she'd either settle down, or circumstance dictated she had to; with the way she passed herself round like a party-favour, Jules was sure unplanned pregnancy would dictate her future. And a small part of her already dreaded the kind of mother her child would have to endure.

For the moment, though, Hayley had taken to wandering the streets of Mystic Falls, getting a feel for the sleepy, pretty town. Jules was happy to let her go – she kept her own self-interest to heart and wouldn't risk sticking her neck out for anything, she wouldn't cause trouble for the sake of it.

But the others were getting antsy.

* * *

"Where is she?!"

"Just let it go, Damon, don't be stupid!" Ric urged, following at a stride, alarmed Damon was – well, doing a classic Damon and letting emotion dictate his response to a situation he had created.

"What, I'm supposed to just let her get away – ' _you've been marked_ ', what the hell kind of wolf throw-down crap is that anyway?!" Damon blurted angrily. Ric followed at a stride, watching his friend. He was letting his emotions get the better of him, and that usually ended up with someone getting their heart ripped out.

"Low-brow shot at canine humour, marking their territory – or in your case, their prey," Rose said, sidling beside him, relaxed.

"Damon, _look up_! Just look up!" Ric urged, and Damon scowled up at the moon. It was full, luminous and dazzling, giving everything a silvery glow. "If this werewolf stuff is true, _one_ bite and you're dead – _one_ _bite_. Alright, don't risk it. Just – go home, lock your doors, and we'll deal with it in the morning."

Damon pulled a face, silver eyes churning with anger and emotion, but he gave a curt nod. "Yeah." Ric sighed as Damon and Rose wandered off to his car, Rose wiggling her fingers back at him with a smile; he liked her. She was calm, didn't let things get to her the way Damon did; Ric thought she was good for him. At least she'd made an attempt to diffuse the situation inside The Grill.

Tyler's mystery she-wolf had apparently brought friends. The rest of the pack – or at least three new guys who'd all been glaring across the restaurant at them for a good hour before one had slammed his shoulder into Damon on his way to get a drink. Ric knew one thing; no-one got between Damon and his bourbon. Only the fact Rose was there and Damon _wasn't_ three sheets to the wind already meant he hadn't risked railroading the reputation he'd been cultivating around town.

The house was full of… _life_. Odd. He knew it was Giulia by the playlist blazing from the kitchen, _The Kinks_ ; the clatter of pots and pans; the growls of frustration; the scent of raspberries and warm copper, gelatine, roasting oranges, crystallised pineapple and thyme, heady and mouth-watering, seeping down the hall from the kitchen.

She only came home to pilfer from the library or make a mess in the kitchen. Still rattled and annoyed by the wolf-bitch, and her stupid threat – if you were gonna threaten someone, make it creative and _visual_ – knowing Giulia was waging a culinary war, he reached back and turned the lock.

"Giulia?"

"Don't speak to me! I'm removing moulds!" came a shouted response, voice full of agitation. Damon gestured to Rose with a roll of his eyes, smiling, and she followed curiously. Pausing at the butler's pantry, he eyed the exquisite _sertout de table_ inherited from Damon's glorious Florentine _contessa_ great-grandmother, the scent of silver polish making his nose twitch, noting his mother's vases and sweatmeat dishes, cleaned and ready. He followed his nose and found Giulia, her intense features drawn into a scowl of concentration, the light gleaming off a large copper mould she was painstakingly removing. He waited until she breathed a sigh of satisfaction, her scowl melting into a gentle smile, before he spoke.

"The great unveiling, huh?" he smirked, as Giulia cleaned the antique plate on which a truly glorious belgrave jelly shone, the pale blancmange centre showing through clear spirals of elderflower-jelly. " _Why_ did you ever think this was a good idea?"

"It's something memorable," Giulia said thoughtfully, eyeing the jelly.

"What's all this for?" Rose asked, eyeing the huge oak table, laid with more fruits of Giulia's labour – elaborately-decorated pies, sweetmeats, crystallised fruit, candied violets drying for decoration, a glorious cake, several daintier blancmanges, her attempts at _tuiles_ and brandy-snaps, some Indian- and Asian-infused dishes that nodded to the popular influences of the British Empire's trade-routes, taking Damon back to famously expensive Lockwood banquets. Only the Lockwoods would have had oysters, pineapples and saffron during the Civil War! They had borrowed Salvatore moulds, though, for the pies and jellies – the original Mrs Lockwood had always envied their collection. It was a shame no-one used them anymore – dining used to be an experience for all the senses, as visually tempting as they were delicious, fragrant. Damon's family had always set ball suppers _a la Francaise_ , everything on the table at once around the elaborate centrepiece of desserts, flowers, ceramics and silverware; no-one was expected to eat everything, they took what they wanted and helped each other. It was a far more sociable, delightful way to host a dinner-party. His mother had always hosted the most delicious, intimate suppers; Alice had continued the tradition. Their first Christmas together, his gift to her was a smaller copper jelly mould designed with lily-of-the-valley framing a dainty cameo of Alice's profile.

"It's a recreation – rather an _reimagining_ of the supper Mrs Lockwood hosted for the Founding families in 1864," Giulia said, stifling a yawn. She looked exhausted. "I'm doing a trial-run of the recipes, before the caterer who's going to help me produce the final meal can take over."

"You made all of this?" Rose asked.

"I'm not very good at delegating," Giulia sighed, upturning mini-blancmanges she had made with leftovers, offering them on a plate with some teaspoons to sample. "And I've been working on this too long, I'm very protective of it."

"How did you research this?"

"Stefan's diaries, to start with. Letters between other Founders thanking Mrs Lockwood for their favourite dishes, asking to share the recipes; the recipe-book collated by Mrs Lockwood's head cook, an educated slave; Mrs Lockwood's invoices for the ingredients and flowers; the newspaper article detailing the supper – what people wore, the decorations, who provided the music," Giulia shrugged. "One of the guests painted the evening after to commemorate it. I've had it restored by someone in New York. _Pastels_." She growled a sigh, rolling her eyes in annoyance.

"Bit dangerous, don't you think? I'm _in_ that painting," Damon said.

"Only your cheekbones," Giulia said fairly. "You're only in profile, and Stefan wasn't sat close enough to the viewer to really be recognised."

"The lot of the second son," Damon smirked.

"Speaking of, where is your little-brother?" Giulia asked distractedly, eyeing the punnets of redcurrants, small bright-red strawberries and dark cherries, stalks on, the small pineapples and pomegranates she had bought, peaches and bunches of herbs and elderflowers, fern fronds – she had already ordered the roses and China asters and baby's-breath. Decoration; every dish she was creating would be presented exquisitely on the best crockery, with flowers and greenery and berries, elaborate antique skewers stuck with then-exotic olives, crayfish and, in an extreme display of wealth, truffles. He remembered one dubious favourite of Honoria Fell's – _jellied lobsters_. "Stefan usually corners me when I'm cooking. He likes to save the accusations for when I'm wielding a knife, oddly."

"Oh, he's probably gazing longingly into Elena's eyes," Damon drawled. "Guess you haven't done anything that threatens Elena's peace of mind."

"The night is young," Giulia said grimly, popping a cherry into her mouth and chewing ruminatively.

"I haven't seen food like this in over a century," Rose sighed wistfully, dawdling along the table, examining each moulded pie and elaborate jelly – the scent of the elderflower-gin belgrave jelly with a rhubarb-mint blancmange tucked inside made him itch to try it; he picked up the leftover tiny one, a tangy lemon one, licking his spoon clean. Rose paused at an elaborate moulded pie, the top decorated. "What's in this pie?"

"That one…was actually a Salvatore recipe. Based on something like cacciatore – mushrooms, thyme, olives, sun-dried tomatoes, I used venison and chicken. And breadcrumbs, as it was so _wet_."

"How much longer are you gonna be doing this?" Damon asked, gesturing around the kitchen.

"Not long," Giulia said. "I have one more jelly to unveil and then I have a ton of reading to do." She yawned.

"Cool, well, just mark what you don't want eaten," Damon smirked.

"Oh, you're not touching these," Giulia warned him. "I'm getting credits for this project; I need photographs of each dish and the finished spread. Not to mention a calculation of the final cost and man-hours involved _now_ , compared to _then_."

"Why did you decide to do this again?" Damon asked. He vaguely remembered her mentioning the project when he'd first come back to town.

"I thought it would be _fun_."

He chuckled fondly. "You're a freak; only _you_ would think this is _fun_ ," he sighed. "Well, _have fun_."

"Do you want any help?" Rose asked. "Some of these blancmanges and jellies will keep in the refrigerator."

"If you wouldn't mind putting them away, carefully," Giulia said gratefully. Damon rolled his eyes, wandering off to pour himself a drink; at least the kitchen refrigerator was empty for Giulia to store things. The pies and cakes were tucked into the larder to keep cool and covered but not chilled – the larder kept the moisture out. He was in the library when he heard Giulia and Rose in the hall, talking and laughing. He sauntered over, handing Rose a drink, and Giulia was saying goodbye when Damon heard glass smashing.

He set his drink down, eyeing the crossed swords – sharp – nestled behind the Salvatore coat-of-arms, and remembering the full-moon, the wolf-threat, he quietly unsheathed one of them, wielding it before him as he entered the great hall, signalling to Rose and Giulia to stay put.

An amber-eyed wolf growled amid shards of broken glass – for a brief second, he was relieved the bitch hadn't come through the century-old stained-glass windows.

Those glowing eyes lit on him, the growl deepened, angrier, and Damon didn't know what happened.

One minute, the wolf was there, the next, there was a wine, he blinked, and a cascade of dark waves flashed in the lamplight, obscured by the wolf's thick fur.

She didn't scream, but the scent of her blood was fresh on the air, rich and mouth-watering; there was a clicking noise, and the wolf howled, whining, a piteous sound; he plunged the sword through its chest, and it whined, turning tail and fleeing, leaping, its silvery fur bloody, through the broken window.

Giulia raised a shaking hand to her neck and shoulder, flesh torn and a mess, bleeding profusely, and Rose dropped to her knees, pressing the t-shirt she had whipped off to the wound, as something small and dented and silver – a lap-counter – fell to the carpet as Giulia shook on the floor, trying to sit up.

Without even thinking, Damon had bitten his wrist and shoved it against her mouth. She squeaked, shoving him away, but Rose stilled, glancing up at Damon as she slowly removed her ruined top from Giulia's shoulder.

Her shoulder was healing, the skin knitting itself back together.

Giulia glared up at him, snatched her lap-counter off the floor, shook Rose off and stormed away; she paused briefly to unlock the front-door and left a topless Rose staring up at Damon, who frowned, watching her go.

* * *

 **A.N.** : What's next, you wonder?


	34. No Negotiation

**A.N.** : Just finished watching _The Originals_. I have two thoughts: They're _ASLEEP?!_ And also, they're counting on _Hayley_ to save them? Doomed.

I've just been re-watching _Grimm_ – now there is a show that knows how to write superwitch-babies and emotional/supernatural turmoil! I would highly recommend it.

* * *

 **Dangerous Beauty**

 _34_

 _No Negotiation_

* * *

Caroline made her sit down and drink something fruity for an instant hit of vitamins. Giulia, hands shaking and feeling sweaty and clammy, wanted to lie down and fall asleep; but she'd come out, to the mall in Grove Hill, for some much-needed bonding and retail-therapy. With everything they all had going on, it was moments like this that they needed to steal whenever they could; _normal_ , teenage moments. Like the upcoming Classic that Giulia was still in line to join Caroline and the rest of the squad at. The Sixties dance. Picking over every detail of Caroline's on-and-off relationship with Matt, now warming again despite the raging jealousy and insecurity Caroline had laid on to distance Matt from her, protecting him.

And though she knew it was good for them – for the both of them, and for their friendship – to spend time doing normal things outside of Mystic Falls, no distractions – Giulia tried, but her heart wasn't in it. She tried to be enthusiastic for Caroline's sake as she helped pick out the perfect little Jackie O gloves for her costume for the Sixties dance, but over the course of the day she had just felt worse and worse. Her shoulder throbbed as if it were still broken, itching and almost _heavy_ , the pressure of it weighing on her.

She had stormed from the Boarding House, fully-healed and angry, and given everything she had considered just holing up in her house until the blood left her system. She didn't want to risk a car-accident turning her into a vampire.

She didn't think she'd handle it quite as well as Caroline.

And now she felt… _sick_. Like she had the flu, with the added inconvenience of her throbbing shoulder, her neck itching and burning, she had to almost sit on her hands to stop herself scratching, but when light spots flickered in her eyes, her vision blurring, dizziness and nausea churning through her, she had to sit down in the food-court with her head between her knees while Caroline bought her a fresh orange-juice. Her many bags, some shiny, some cute little card boutique-bags tied with ribbons, swung from her arms as she bounced back over, her face a picture of worry, and Giulia sipped the drink slowly.

The only time she'd ever felt bad like this was a particularly memorable day while she was on her period, not even the heaviest day in her cycle, but her dad had had to come pick her up from school because in front of her Biology teacher's eyes she had gone white as a sheet, clammy, shadows had appeared under her eyes, and she had nearly fainted out of her desk; she had added more iron to her diet and had been fine ever since. But it was that kind of delirious feeling, shaky with a cold-sweat, dizzy, that she forever associated with a lack of control, and she could remember her dad tucking her into bed on her side with a blanket, taking up residence in the armchair in her room as the only thing he could do, the idea of her menstrual cycle too much for her widowed Marine father to handle comfortably. But he'd sat with her. He'd been there.

The orange-juice did her good, gave her that instant boost; they got Caroline's outfit ready and Giulia indulged in some chic new stationery and a pair of subtle, edgy black-drusy snake studs, and she managed to coerce Caroline just to drop her off at her house. Caroline didn't ask to come into the house, and Giulia had never invited her in. Briefly, she reflected on how deeply Caroline would think it a betrayal of their friendship that Giulia had never let _her_ into her house, but she was _living with_ Elijah.

She pulled on her pyjamas and curled up under the covers, wishing Elijah had been home. He was off hatching up some nefarious plan to get close to the Founders; it was fun to imagine him schmoozing a smitten Carol.

Giulia looked awful when he returned home of find her curled up under the covers – something she _never_ did. He had rarely seen her while away the hours in bed. Her heartbeat sounded like a hummingbird's, so fast was it thrumming; she was pale as death and covered in sweat, clammy, and shivering violently. Her eyes were closed, and she had been drawn into a deep sleep, but her eyes darted beneath her eyelids, restless. He frowned, raising a hand to her forehead; she was burning up. And her fingernails on her left hand were bloody – he frowned, and found the source, a nasty-looking rash on her right shoulder. She had obviously been scratching at it in her sleep.

It had been a long time since he studied medicine the first time, but most recently he had studied his way to being a doctor specialising in obstetrics. Some would say he was psychologically stuck, the specialty with obstetrics stemming from his helplessness, his inability to save Torvi from dying during a complicated childbirth. He was scarred from her loss, the child's death; Lucrezia had taught him enough that nearly every possibility was covered when she finally went into labour. And…part of him had thought that if he was ever in the situation with Torvi again – watching a mother slowly, agonisingly die, and the child within her too – he would know what to do. Could alter the outcome. Because he could never go back and save her life, or the dead child's he had never named.

All of that complicated medical terminology, that brutal seven years of study, rushed to the fore, but it was the general nursing, the everyday care, that he needed now; he had been given awards at the hospital, for his bedside manner, for his _care_ of the patients, going above and beyond not just to keep them healthy, but to make them comfortable, unafraid, _happy_ in a place where all those things were taken for granted. He missed his career as a doctor of obstetrics; he missed the feeling of tangibly making an everyday difference to people's lives. But it had become too much, trying to take care of everyone – patients and, sometimes more importantly, the staff charged with their care, pushed to their limits – and with a tiny Ashlyn at home, he hadn't wanted to miss out. But he had never lost his bedside manner – Ashlyn used to love feigning illness because it meant she was spoiled with his presence.

It was alarming, though, seeing Giulia like this. He flinched, a visceral reaction to her obvious pain. He wondered how she had succumbed to whatever illness it was – influenza smelled different. Her scent had changed, ever so slightly, richer, but with an edge. He gently rolled her to her back, draping a cold washcloth over her forehead, and patted another against the rash on her shoulder, frowning in concern. The only thing it reminded him of, it couldn't possibly be. She was no vampire. He taped a gauze bandage over the rash, in the hopes of preventing her from irritating the skin further, and tucked Giulia in. If she worsened he might take her to the hospital, but he knew she wouldn't thank him for _fussing_ – or outing them. That Jenna Somers knew was enough.

He was quite glad Jenna did know.

Elijah sank onto the bed, shoulders heavy as he watched Giulia fret in her sleep. All of a sudden, she woke, delirious, glancing around unseeingly, confused; her expression broke his heart. He knew that feeling.

"Where were you?" he asked, and she jumped, glazed eyes darting to his face. She sighed, collapsing against the mattress, raising a shaking hand to her closed eyes, her lips trembling.

"The cellar," she whispered hoarsely. He sighed, pulling off his shoes and belt, climbing in beside her, tucking her close. Falling asleep against him, her silent, unconscious tears leaked onto his shirt; he didn't mind. He stayed with her until she fell asleep, drawn deeply into her slumber.

He was downstairs preparing a meal for Giulia to eat when she woke when the coppery tang hit his tongue. The lamb-shanks he had set to slow-roast with garlic, rosemary and red wine weren't bloody – he turned off the stove and sped upstairs, lips parting in surprise and dread. Blood blossomed across Giulia's pillowcase, soaked through the bandage he had applied; she looked cold and still as death, but her heart beat, slowly, each thud strong in his ears. Surprised by his own hesitancy, he turned her over, removing the bandage, and swallowed.

His first thought had been correct; but how could it be? Pressing a dark towel to Giulia's shoulder, he pulled her phone out of her bag. Of course it had run out of battery – he plugged it into the wall, and breathed a sigh of relief that she hadn't changed her password since he had last memorised it, seeking only one phone-number in all her contacts.

"Sheila Bennett? I am Elijah," he said softly. "Giulia needs your help."

" _What've you done to her_?"

"Nothing, you have my word," Elijah said, pressing down on the towel. He could smell the blood seeping into it, warm, going cold quickly. He swallowed with difficulty, Giulia's blood soaked across the pillow-case and sheets. As Sheila Bennett made her way over to the house, he plucked the sheet off, and the pillowcase, shoving the pillow into the sink in the laundry-room to soak it before he put it in the washing-machine.

The kooky lady Giulia loved and respected crossed the threshold without invitation, hurrying upstairs. She took one look at Giulia, and Elijah standing over her pressing the towel to her shoulder, and frowned, sighing.

"Alright, what've we got here?" she asked, and Elijah grimaced as he peeled the towel away.

"This…I have only ever seen infection like this on vampires – from a werewolf-bite," Elijah said gently, glancing at Professor Bennett. She sighed heavily, clucking her tongue.

"Alright, lemme at her," she said, gesturing him out of the way. Elijah couldn't help but hover, anxious; he watched Sheila Bennett clasp Giulia's hand, eyeing the infected wound interestedly. She closed her eyes, and whatever magic she was doing, it was so understated he felt nothing; the most powerful magic was the most subtle. A frown drew Professor Bennett's features in, looking almost confused. "You got an empty bottle or somethin'?"

"Yes," Elijah nodded, disappearing downstairs to raid the pantry for the sterile bottles Giulia had bought in bulk for making her own cordials and liqueurs. He handed one to Miss Sheila, who closed her eyes, humming something – but she stopped, panting. She didn't have the strength. Healing spells were tricky and required power at the best of times; she was fighting a _supernatural_ infection. "Here," he said, offering his hand. "Draw from me."

She eyed his hand thoughtfully for a moment, then took it. Her neat eyebrows rose in surprise, and she turned to Giulia, humming again. He watched in surprise, feeling the gentle tug of Sheila drawing on him for power, as yellowish venom – he could smell the poison in the air – drifted from the open wound at Giulia's shoulder into the open bottle in his other hand. She frowned again, and he wondered what she felt. Witches' instincts were uncanny.

Giulia gave a sigh of relief, her entire body relaxing. He watched the wound to her shoulder heal itself, leaving smooth, unmarked flesh. The scent of copper was still rich on the air from the towel he had dumped in the bathtub, but agonising death no longer emanated from Giulia; she smelled warm and healthy, the scent was rich, heady, with that natural perfume unique to Giulia alone. He had always noted her scent, not vampire, not quite _only_ human. There was something to her, but her personality had long ago become more important to him than his curiosity about that scent. He was used to it; that scent was _Giulia_. If it meant anything to him, it meant _her_. He didn't care about anything else.

But Professor Bennett looked grim. She arranged Giulia's hand on her stomach after releasing his, capping the bottle of werewolf venom.

"Someone fed her vampire blood," she said softly, glancing at Elijah with a hint of accusation. "Full-moon was two nights ago; I'm guessing she was bit." _Wolves_. He knew a small pack had moved into the woods, their stinking RV and old tents clustered around an illegal campfire. He had scented vervain and vampire-blood in the back of that RV, knew there were only eight of them, including their alpha-female Jules and a younger girl who seemed to be there only for one reason. He regretted the pack had arrived in town, especially with the motives he had overheard them discussing; at least there weren't any decent people amongst them. He wouldn't regret dispatching them.

They should have listened to Tyler Lockwood when he'd told Jules to leave town.

Now they threatened his plans. One had attacked Giulia. This would not do.

Who had healed her? _Where_ had she been bitten? He could imagine her taking the attack in place of her Caroline… It was the first time he had ever seen a human react to werewolf venom – he thought perhaps the vampire-blood used to heal her had triggered the activation of the venom.

He allowed Professor Bennett to take the werewolf venom – it would not kill him, after all. It was more an inconvenience.

Professor Bennett sighed heavily, stroking the damp hair from Giulia's forehead. "Someone has some questions to answer to, sugar," she said quietly. Elijah glanced at her, itching to ask but not wanting to put her on the spot, especially about something she obviously knew about Giulia that Giulia didn't.

He thanked Professor Bennett, who looked at him with something strange in her eyes, but she slipped into her car and drove off, and he closed the door on the end of the day. Upstairs Giulia slept soundly, and he tended to the mess, changing the sheets around her, checking on her dinner simmering slowly in the oven. He poured himself a finger of bourbon and sat at the piano, playing ruminatively.

She drifted downstairs, showered and dressed, as he was scribbling notes on his composition, replaying movements thoughtfully. He was no Mozart, but who was; and he enjoyed the music he created. She knew as well as he did that creating beautiful things was his coping-mechanism when things weren't going well – on a small-scale, he worked on jewellery, furniture; on a grander scale, he had created the community in New York, ensuring others never remained as lonely as he was then.

Elijah no longer felt lonely when he was with Giulia. He felt… _young_. Excited. They were perfectly bonded. She entranced him; made him question himself, pushed him. In moments when he allowed himself to, he envisioned what the next few hundred years would be like, with Giulia by his side, rediscovering the world in this age, and through her eyes. The prospect _wasn't_ exhausting. He imagined what she'd get him doing, and smiled to himself. It was _exciting_.

But those thoughts were as dangerous as they were joyous to him. He would _never_ turn her. Others he had turned because he cared about them, or appreciated what they had to contribute; he loved Giulia too much to turn her. Truly he should have let her go months ago, knowing what he did about Niklaus' methods. Giulia had had a target on her back since Elijah had shown any preference toward her. Whether only Jenna Somers and now Sheila Bennett knew or not, somehow Klaus would discover Elijah's lover. It had happened far too many times before, and Elijah had thought he knew better; but…Giulia had refused to let him balk, and now Elijah refused to give her up.

Perhaps he was deluding himself, that finally, _she_ was clever enough, devious enough, courageous and Machiavellian herself, to outwit his brother. And outlive her love for him.

Niklaus had much to answer for – even before Elijah had learned the truth carved into the walls by his neighbours a thousand years ago. A devastating but not wholly unsurprising truth that altered everything, the very fabric their _family_ had been woven from.

The long list of his and his siblings' lovers Niklaus had tormented, tortured and executed brutally over the centuries was just a chapter in the book documenting his most evil atrocities. Elijah was anxious that Giulia would not end on that list. But he knew it was a possibility; and he hated himself for being so selfish. He would not give her up, even though he knew the danger it placed her in.

But Giulia was not the type to blindly cast off his worries, underestimate the danger she was in. She had been drawn into his mind and experienced the very earliest tragedies of his family's history, discovered the truth on those cave walls, knew the fates of his lovers and friends throughout history, and…was _annoyed_ more than frightened of Klaus' retribution. She refused to let Elijah give her up; and she would not give in to fear of his brother. She anticipated it; and preparation was power.

"How do you feel?" he asked gently, smiling as Giulia lifted her nose, scenting the air. He had become rather desensitised to the scent of the lamb slow-roasting in the oven, but he rose from the piano-stool and strode over to her, taking her face in her hands. She looked healthy, but miserable. "You look awful."

"I feel okay," she said sadly. "You didn't leave anything on the floor, did you? Potato peelings, pots and pans? It would be utterly mortifying I snapped my neck slipping on a banana-skin and came back as a vampire."

"Who gave you the blood?" Elijah asked quietly.

"Damon." The way she said his name, the look on her face, said it all. Giulia didn't believe in using vampire-blood to heal; she thought it would destroy her respect for her own mortality. And that was the only thing that kept her honed, kept her sharp, made her thing fourteen steps ahead.

"Shall I swaddle you in eiderdown?" Elijah smiled, leaning in for a kiss. "Keep you tucked away safe from harm." Giulia wrapped her arms around his waist, propping her chin on his shoulder as he enveloped her in his arms, just gently holding each other. It was the warmest, most relaxed embrace Giulia had ever given him, and Elijah lost himself in it.

"Thank you for being here," Giulia murmured. He squeezed her tighter, pressing a kiss to her neck.

"Of course," he sighed.

"Did you call Sheila here?"

"I did. I thought you would not trust Dr Martin not to steal information from you even as he helped you," Elijah said.

"He could try," Giulia smiled tiredly into his shoulder. "Thank you."

"For what?"

"For thinking of that," Giulia said.

"Professor Bennett said something curious when she healed you," Elijah said; he didn't think she'd have heard. "That someone has some questions to answer to, about you."

"Witches," Giulia sighed. "Too intuitive for their own good."

"Mm. What do you think she meant?" Elijah asked. Giulia sighed, but didn't answer for a long while.

"She may be alluding to a reason why I reacted to the Gilbert device spelled to incapacitate supernatural beings," Giulia said. Elijah frowned. "A spelled object. Tyler was hurt by it, too, before he triggered the curse. A spell of that magnitude targeted even latent supernatural genes." She withdrew from their embrace, tucking her hair out of her face. Elijah frowned at her, mind racing. She had been affected by the very familiar spell witches used to drop supernatural enemies, giving them repeated aneurysms? How? Her scent was richer than most normal humans, but that did not automatically make her supernatural.

"You don't think perhaps…?"

"What?" Giulia prompted. Elijah gazed at her.

"You do not think possibly there is a connection between you and the Lockwood family?" he asked.

"The Salvatore and Lockwood families never intermarried," Giulia said, arching an eyebrow. "And I was conceived in Italy. So, no, unless there is some disgusting family-history I do not want to know about, I don't believe I have any supernatural genes. And surely killing my mother would have triggered the curse."

"Your mother dying in childbirth would not trigger the curse," Elijah sighed. "Death in childbirth is _natural_ , as tragic as it is. The curse punishes murderers, and those too negligent to prevent loss of life."

"Well, that's a relief," Giulia mumbled.

"I wonder who Sheila Bennett meant owed you answers," Elijah said thoughtfully.

"And about what?" Giulia shrugged disinterestedly. "Probably Damon; he was the only one around when I was little. Anyway, I don't care. Some things, we're better off not knowing." Elijah grunted a soft response, dwelling on some uncomfortable truths he rather did feel he was better knowing; but the trouble it would create, he could see how some of his siblings – Rebekah – might wish _not_ to know. The truth was uncomfortable to absorb at the best of times; and this truth undid a thousand years of ingrained acceptance. It would give them all the leverage they needed to shed the great weight of his burden – of all of them, Elijah had been daggered least by Niklaus, only once, in a thousand years – he had endured the most time with Niklaus. Even Rebekah had not lasted – fifty-two years in the Nineteenth Century; she had seen only twenty-two years of the Twentieth. She had been daggered as many as forty times by Niklaus, for varying durations – a day, a decade, a fortnight. She had never truly recovered from Marcellus' betrayal – he had chosen eternity over her, allowed Niklaus to keep her daggered for half a century.

"I understand," he said softly. It was strange, though, Giulia's disinterest in her own mystery. She _loved_ knowledge. Puzzles; answers. Intrigue. Collecting the subtlest hints and clues. She enjoyed the thrill of the game. And he didn't care; Giulia was Giulia. _What_ she was didn't matter to him; _who_ she was had everything to do with how completely and irrevocably in love with her he was. "Are you hungry?"

"Always," Giulia smiled. He turned the stove on, and they enveloped themselves on the sofa for a little while, quiet and relaxed, Elijah sipping his bourbon.

"What were you doing when you were attacked?" he asked, frowning.

"I was at the Boarding House," Giulia murmured, slowly looking through his sketchbook. "Working on the food for the anniversary dinner."

"Mm. I'd like to see all this food," Elijah said interestedly. He knew Giulia had been working on the food for a recreation dinner for months, that the Historic Society he was trying to infiltrate for information was annoyed that more guests hadn't been invited; they felt it was elitist, only the topmost echelon of Mystic Falls society invited. Considering a high-school student had come up with the project and put in all the work for it, Elijah had pointed out she had every right to dictate the guest-list she wished to share this with. As Giulia had said, one Montague and one Capulet was enough, she didn't want _her_ dinner ruined by the kinds of people who were complaining about not being on the elite guest-list.

"Well, there's a ton of it," Giulia sighed. "I've been testing the recipes and the moulds to make sure there aren't any nasty surprises. I almost drowned in gelatine."

"Be glad you were cooking Victorian food, not medieval," Elijah chuckled. "Gelatine would be the last of your worries." Giulia smiled, and let him untangle himself from the sofa to finish preparing their meal. She strolled over, rubbing her face and moaning.

"I can't believe I lost my entire weekend," she sighed, shaking her head.

"It can still be salvaged," Elijah smiled warmly, preparing the last of the dinner and plating up. He playfully slapped at Giulia's fingers as she went to steal a roasted onion dripping in the red-wine gravy the lamb-shanks had been slowly roasting in. He had a sweet-tooth that could outrival Augustus Gloop's – she lived for savoury dishes.

They enjoyed their evening together, and Elijah put it out of his mind what Professor Bennett had said about Giulia being owed answers. It was always dubious when a witch said something cryptic like that, there were usually two ways people handled the unknown: investigated to the point of madness; or ignored it completely.

Elijah knew only too well the effects of werewolf venom. For whatever reason, Giulia had reacted to it; and he wondered what memories had been dredged up by the fever. He had endured the most traumatic memories that had shaped the man he now was. Whatever she had seen, Giulia was internalising everything; and he was amused by the irony of his frustration that she wasn't sharing.

* * *

Giulia scowled as she strode through the restaurant. There was no need to ask Rose where Damon was; if he wasn't in the library, he was at the bar at The Grill. She strode up to Damon and grabbed his glass, slamming it down on the bar.

"I drove over here going literally twenty miles per hour," she said as a greeting. "And then I remembered I don't have airbags so I parked my car and _walked_ here. Do you understand what I'm getting at?"

"You need to update your ride?" Damon asked, eyeing her hand pointedly. She picked up his glass and downed the rest of his bourbon. "Okay. Clearly you're in a mood."

"I'm in a – I am…I don't even – I can't even think clearly I am so angry at you," Giulia said, keeping her voice down.

"Angry, why, because I saved your life?"

" _You_ did not save my life, you put it at _risk_ ," Giulia hissed.

"At risk?" Damon chuckled unconcernedly. At her glare, he swallowed, looking a little more focused.

"Until your blood is out of my system I am in danger of being turned into a vampire," Giulia reminded him.

"And what's wrong with that? Half – no, _all_ of your friends are supernatural," Damon shrugged. "It's bound to happen sooner or later." Giulia stared at him. And stared.

For several long minutes, she stared down at him, silent and heartbroken. Of everything, the neglect, the open hostility, her father's death because of their feuding…that Damon had so little regard for her, for her safety, her _life_ , that he could sit there, so blasé, and uncaringly tell her that it was an inevitability that she would be turned into a vampire…

"You don't even _care_ that I'd be like you?"

She was too hurt to speak, to argue; the fight had left her. Because there was no point; there was no arguing with a vampire. With _Damon_. He…didn't _care_.

There was no explaining to Damon that she was _human_ , she was vulnerable. She couldn't do everything he could, and yet a lot of people had started to expect that she could.

She wasn't going to drill it into his head that if she kept shoving vampire-blood down her throat every time she got hurt, she would lose respect for her own limitations – that that was the point where she would really get _hurt_.

Because he – had no _respect_ for her.

It was the first time Giulia had ever understood that.

"Hey," a soft voice said, and Giulia bristled. "Hey, I hope you two aren't arguing because of me, what's going on." Elena gazed through her lashes at them. Giulia stared at her, unseeing; beyond her, John Gilbert glared on. Halfwit Stefan had thought it a good idea to summon him back to town to add one more body to the Protect Elena squad. He'd been unable to contact Isobel, so John was the next best thing; he hadn't managed to find her, either. She had fallen off the face of the earth.

Or into a dank hole in the ground.

Giulia knew Stefan had tried to contact Isobel; she'd found his voicemail on Isobel's phone. John was the next obvious choice: she was John's biological child, he had been trying to protect Elena from the things that went bump in the night since she was little, had ensured she had a wonderful life since the day she was born. _That_ was what family did, regardless of how likeable they were – and John Gilbert was a douche.

Damon was a dick; but he didn't care about anything but himself.

Giulia used to fancy that he loved her, too.

"Not everything we do or say is dictated by _you_ ," Damon sneered at Elena, who flinched. Giulia, still upset by Damon and reeling from her revelations, glanced around the restaurant; she was supposed to meet Caroline for dinner but the Mystic Queen was late. Caroline was never _late_.

She pulled out her phone, ignoring Elena and Damon, and dialled Caroline's number. The call connected, and Giulia mumbled, "Hey, Caroline, are you on your way?" She really…really wanted to talk to someone. She felt like she was about to burst into tears – Elijah was at home and she was too hungry to go all that way back to an empty refrigerator and be a hot mess in front of Elijah, _again_. She kept waking him in the middle of the night with her nightmares – reliving first Tyler's transformation, Caroline's murder…and finding her dad. Combined with what Damon had just said to her, his irreverence, his complete disregard for her… She was struggling. She wanted her Caroline to sling her arms around her shoulders in a hug, her familiar perfume washing over her, just letting her sit quietly and upset.

" _Well, well_ ," an unfamiliar voice drawled, sending a nasty shiver down Giulia's spine. " _The one who got in the way_."

A cold chill seemed to envelope Giulia; something in her expression altered Damon's, watchful and still. She sighed. "You have to wonder about the _super_ \- part of your nature if a teenage girl can get the better of you. You're _Jules_ , I presume. I'd say you know who I am but you probably can't pronounce my name. Why have you taken Caroline?"

" _You and your little friends have made a mistake_."

"Usually. Specify which, please: Stefan's hair in the Eighties; Damon's taste in women," Giulia said casually. "Or are you referring to us all looking out for our friend Tyler?"

" _We want him. You're going to bring him to us_."

"I'm disinclined to acquiesce your request," Giulia said, communicating with one extremely dangerous look how much trouble Damon was in. He had picked a fight with a werewolf, and she had attacked him: she had failed, mauling Giulia instead. And now she had targeted _Caroline_. "The thing is, I don't negotiate with terrorists."

" _See, I think that you will_ ," Jules practically simpered. A gunshot ricocheted, and Giulia was frozen, her heart turning glacial as Caroline screamed. " _You have twenty minutes, or she dies_." The line went dead.

"Why do they want Tyler?" Damon asked, as Elena gazed imploringly at him to be clued in.

"Politics," Giulia murmured distractedly, oddly calm, clear-headed. Filled with a murderous, white-hot rage. They had taken her Caroline.

"You'd think they'd learn after Elijah and I killed those wolves who showed up at the high-school," Damon sighed, clicking his tongue.

"What's going on?" Elena asked, as John Gilbert drifted closer.

"Finish your dinner, Elena," Giulia sighed tiredly, as she swiftly braided her hair down her back.

"Well, guess we're going hunting," Damon smirked, climbing off his bar-stool.

"Don't bother," Giulia said softly, drifting away, tucking her phone into her pocket. She braided her hair down her back as she strode across the restaurant, with the single thought; to find Caroline.

"Going to take on the big bad wolf all by yourself with a hatchet?" Damon asked, catching up with her. She briefly glimpsed Stefan taking Elena's arm as she made to storm after them, looking intent, John Gilbert simmering behind.

"You've an objection to that?"

"Hell, yeah, I haven't had a decent fight in weeks," Damon said, smirking.

"Hey," a voice said, and Giulia tilted her head in Tyler's direction. "I heard you on the phone. They've got Caroline?!"

"You wouldn't happen to know anything about it, would you?" Damon asked, eyes glowing eerily as he glared at Tyler.

"Look, I don't want anything to do with that Jules chick," Tyler said, holding his hands up defensively. "She smells mean."

"I don't know, some people just don't smell right," Tyler shrugged. "I've kinda figured out the nastier you are, the nastier you smell. And that's without liquor and drugs in people's systems. They actually smell sweeter."

"Well, stick your head out the window and tell us if we're driving in the right direction," Damon smirked.

"Very funny," Tyler sighed. "How are we supposed to know where they are?"

"They're in the woods by the falls," Giulia said, slinging herself into the driver's seat.

"Not gonna ask how you know that," Damon muttered.

"Good. I wouldn't tell you," Giulia said. "We'll see you there."

"He up for this?"

"I don't even know what 'this' is!" Tyler blurted.

"Rescuing Caroline from psychotic werewolves who want to leverage you over your Uncle Mason," Damon explained, with a smirk. " _You're_ the new moonstone."

"Why would anyone want to get to Mason?"

"Because he's a decent guy; they're not, and they know it," Giulia muttered, tucking most of her jewellery into her jacket-pocket and zipping it, putting her car in gear as Damon disappeared in a blur. "Decent people like Mason make people nervous. He's level-headed, he's kind, he cares about others, and he knows his own mind. That's dangerous to people scared of change."

"You think we can convince these guys to leave town?" Tyler asked.

"After a fashion," Giulia said thoughtfully, after a pause.

"Is he gonna kill someone?"

"Most likely," Giulia said, indicating and taking her turn.

"Am I gonna have to fight or something?" Tyler asked hesitantly. "It's one thing sparring with you; I got the feeling these guys have done this kind of stuff before."

"You don't have to," Giulia said quietly. "Just stay in the car so I know where you are. Just – if someone comes at you in the car, get out of the car because I don't want it being damaged."

"Thanks," Tyler said, raising his eyebrows.

"I've spent a lot of hours making sure the engine is perfect for my road-trip with Caroline," Giulia said plainly. "And it's a brand-new paint-job."

"Aren't you nervous?" Tyler asked.

"This isn't my first time," Giulia said grimly, changing gear.

"Are you okay?" Tyler asked.

"They took Caroline." No. She was not okay. Preparation and foresight, _insight_ , could only get her so far; there would always be anomalies that couldn't be accounted for. Things she couldn't predict.

She was brilliant, not omniscient.

And they had taken Caroline. They had hurt her, _shot_ her. She could still hear Caroline's scream.

And they wanted Tyler.

Not going to happen.

She sent a message to Elijah, called Liz and Sheila and told them what was going on.

It was difficult to organise an ambush without notice; Sheila could do what she needed from home, not putting herself in danger; Liz was ready, had abandoned a shooting in the projects to race over. Sheila texted her to tell her everything was good to go; Giulia told Liz and Tyler what to do, and she stocked up from the compartment in her trunk and set off into the woods.

"I know you're out there," a voice called in the dark. Giulia sighed, rolling her eyes. She was _human_ ; she couldn't exactly be subtle to supernatural ears. And she hadn't even tried to be. She climbed around a fallen tree laden with moss and ticking over with living things. A campfire glowed like a jewel in the dark, its scent laced with vervain. She knew there were about ten werewolves left, of the culling Elijah and Damon had squabbled over the other night, the wolves who had come to the school, and she knew they were circling around behind her. Damon was bringing up the rear to make sure. He hadn't had a hot meal in weeks.

"How _wonderful_ that you can hear a human tramping through the woods in the dark!" Giulia sighed, looking her enemy over. Only _her_ , illuminated by the firelight, those ridiculous full lashes about to unpeel from her eyelids. Scowling, a display of bravado, but arms folded over her chest, defensive. Not quite as bold and assured as she'd like them to think. She stood behind the fire, good staging, but she stood between Giulia and a battered 1970s RV. "Caroline's in there, I presume."

"She's locked up tight," Jules said coolly.

"That tin-wagon can hold a vampire?" Giulia asked disdainfully.

"Long enough for us to kill them," Jules hissed, giving her a smug look.

"You go to all the effort and risk of capturing vampires, rather than just killing them," Giulia frowned. "Didn't think wolves played with their food."

"Oh…we don't eat them," Jules smiled nastily. "Some, we just play with."

"And people like you are allowed to roam free," Giulia clicked her tongue. "I was never a fan of population control before, but rabid dogs are a danger to everyone."

"Where's Tyler?" Jules glowered.

"Oh, he has a Geometry test," Giulia said lightly; she had left him in her car with his textbook and a flashlight to write by.

"I told you what would happen if you didn't bring Tyler," Jules glared.

"See, the thing is, and it's no disrespect – well, maybe as much as this pathetic hostage situation deserves – but did you think for one moment that kidnapping the _sheriff's_ daughter to get to the _mayor's_ son would end any other way than in a hail of gunfire? If not here, then somewhere down the line when Caroline's mother calls in the FBI? I don't think that that is the kind of heat you can handle. So, I'm going to ask you, nicely, once, to let Caroline go, and leave town."

"I don't think so. See, Tyler's one of _us_ ," Jules said softly, smiling. "This pack is honour-bound to help him –"

"This pack is bound to eradicating an imaginary threat, and using Tyler as leverage to hurt a good man," Giulia interrupted, her tone glacial. "Do not make the mistake of talking down to me. You're here for your own agenda."

"Well, I see we're going to have to do this the hard way," Jules said.

"There was never any other choice," Giulia said coldly. "You're not the brightest, are you? The decks are stacked in my favour."

"Are you sure about that?" Jules smirked. She raised her fingers to her lips and let out a piercing whistle that echoed off the trees. Leaves rustled, twigs snapped, and shadowy figures emerged from the dark.

"Werewolves travel in packs," Giulia said tartly, " _who_ could have predicted that? You're looking rather thin on the ground, though."

"Don't worry, there's more of us," Jules smirked.

"I wouldn't be so sure about that!" a familiar voice called, and a large body flumped to the ground beside Giulia. Throat torn out. Damon passed her the shotgun he had obviously taken, and roughly shoved an older-teen girl to the ground. She yelped, the scent of her blood tangy and warm on the air as she scrambled off her hands and knees, looking dazed, weak and messy, her long dark hair on end.

"Good meal?" Giulia asked, checking the shotgun was loaded.

"It's always more fun when they struggle," Damon said, with a satisfied smile. "Mm – remind me to feed on werewolves, not tear their hearts out; I don't know what kind of schwag blood the human stuff is – werewolves are like the _Bugati_ of blood-types. Oh, this one's still alive because she didn't struggle. Didn't even put up a fight."

"He fed on me!" the girl cried to Jules.

"Oh, sweetheart, we all know you're used to being bit and sucked on," Damon tsked, smirking. "I can smell… _everything_ on you. Guess _eau de snank_ doesn't come out in the wash."

"Nope," Giulia tutted.

"I mean, I guess if you're the only used to being violently _speared_ , lookout duty's a natural fit. They always get shafted first," Damon smirked. "Anyway, while I was back there _snacking_ , I found these funny little things." He tossed Giulia something, and she smiled.

" _Landmines_!" she sighed.

"Threw me back to when you were five years old. Couldn't navigate the walled garden for the trebuchets," Damon sighed reminiscently.

"The good old days," Giulia sighed softly, arming the mine. The days when she had been so entranced with Damon, his little pal, the light in his darkness. But she realised it now, standing in the firelight with him, facing off against a pack of werewolves set on murdering her friend, she understood.

She had too much darkness of her own to be his light; and _he_ had created that shadow, that tarnish.

When he had killed her dad, he had ruined everything.

He knew it; and now she realised that he did.

"Have to say, though, I mean, my feelings were a _little_ hurt. I've only spent the last hundred-seventy-odd years in these woods. Think I wouldn't notice?" Damon clucked his tongue at Jules.

"Well, they're obnoxious, not clever. It's like Mason's the smart one," Giulia said, and Damon laughed.

"Either way, I'm glad the rumble wasn't over before I got here," Damon smiled lethally.

"Don't worry, Dally, I waited for you," Giulia said, alluding to _The Outsiders_. How many, d'you think?"

"There's what, ten? I'm guessing four."

"I'd say five."

"Even split? How much."

"Hundred."

"Okay." He narrowed his gaze on Jules as Giulia loaded the shotgun; she anticipated, and shell scattered across Jules' back as she leaped onto the RV and out of Damon's reach. Her scream echoed, Giulia reloaded and shot behind her to her left to shoot the guy she knew would react to her shooting Jules, distracted from Damon, their prime target. She discarded the shotgun, threw the landmine at another werewolf; it exploded in a hail of tiny wooden spikes and a whiff of vervain, a spray of blood and an agonised howl. _Hm. Custom_ , she thought, mildly impressed.

"Hey!" someone barked. Giulia sighed, turned, and stared down the barrel of a gun. The shotgun she had discarded; held by the bleeding girl Damon had dragged in. She narrowed her eyes, choked up on her grip, and pulled the trigger. Giulia didn't blink; the other girl's lips parted as she realised what the clicking noise meant. Giulia had disabled the firing pin. She gave the girl a disdainful quirk of an eyebrow, struck out, disarmed her, punched her in the throat, kicked her diaphragm and hissed, " _Sit_!" at her, before picking up the skillet over the fire, scooping a handful of ground wolfsbane from the _Ziploc_ in her pocket. She blew it in the face of one werewolf who dropped to the ground, screaming; Damon chuckled, plucking his shirt out from behind.

She swivelled to the side, avoiding a hit from behind that would've winded her and broken her clavicle, kicked out at the back of her attacker's knee so he stumbled to his knees, where she choked up on the skillet and swung with all her strength, the cast-iron colliding with her target with a sickening, bone-shattering _crunch_. He dropped to the ground, scalp bloodied and broken; she winced, flexing her fingers, she'd felt the strength of her hit in her hand. She grabbed her knife belted at her lower-back and dodged another hit, neatly, brutally disembowelling her last attacker before she yanked the door to the RV open, darting inside.

"Giulia?!"

"They messed up your hair," Giulia said quietly, frowning. She strode the length of the RV, rage simmering ever hotter as she took in the cage, and the state of her Caroline. Blood on her forehead, ashy face, bloodied, ripped t-shirt riddled with bullet-holes, tiny wooden spikes keeping wounds open and sizzling, seeped in vervain, in her neck. She looked in pain and hungry; Giulia had never seen the hollow look in Caroline's eyes. She noticed the darts, the child's water-pistols, the guns – lots of little toys, jars of wooden bullets soaking in vervain. They had tortured her.

She didn't mind losing $100. She should kill every one of them.

"There's a latch," Caroline sniffled, gripping the bars – and hissing as her fingers sizzled, skin seared by some kind of vervain polish. "There's a latch, I can't reach it." Giulia eyed the cage mechanism, systematically dismantling the cage, the weighted spring-loaded latch, rendering it useless. She lifted the door, and gasped softly in pain as it shattered, not through her back from lifting it, but her right hand. She propped the door open, until Caroline had scrambled through, and let the door clang shut behind her, the cage now useless.

"Is Damon out there?" Caroline asked quietly.

"Yeah. Having a hot meal," Giulia said, her voice grim. She kicked the RV door open, hitting whoever was rushing it; they sprawled on the ground, and Giulia walked over him, treading heavily.

The little camp-ground had fallen quiet; only the sound of groans and the crackling of the fire serenaded them. Damon pulled a face as he dumped a bloody heart on the fire.

"Oh. Hey, Caroline," he said, as if they had just met each other at the mall. "See, Liz? Nothin' to worry about; told you we'd get her back." Liz, who had appeared during the ambush, unveiled by Sheila's magic the way Giulia had organised it, made stronger by witchcraft, finished cuffing one of the survivors and gave Damon a look.

"Mom?" Caroline said, her voice quavering. Liz strode over to Caroline, enveloping her in a hug. Giulia could see the emotion on Liz's face – her stomach hurt. She would give anything to see that look on her dad's face. She glanced at Damon, then frowned and looked away, striding over to kick the jaw of one of the werewolves, rousing from the skillet she had bludgeoned him with.

"Are you okay, honey?" Liz asked, and Giulia leaned back against the RV, relief flooding her, realising her legs were shaking – not in the good way – she was out of breath, there were aches from exertion, and her hand hurt. But she watched Liz and Caroline hug, and it was worth it. She flexed her fingers, and gazed around, counting one – five. Dead bodies. Damon was eyeing up the RV for its flammable qualities to disguise the bodies.

"Oh," Damon reached a bloody hand into his back-pocket, withdrawing his wallet. He handed her two $50 notes. She winced as she tucked them into her bra, her hand twinging. "You wanna head home, Liz; I got this."

"I have to get back to the station," Liz said, "but you're okay?"

"I'll be fine," Caroline smiled tiredly, pushing her rumpled curls out of her face. "I'm okay. Really – I'm not girly little Care-Bear anymore."

"Oh, you always will be," Liz assured her, with a loving smile.

"Well, I'll clean up this mess," Damon said.

"No fires, please; the whole county's on a forest-fire warning," Liz said, glancing at Damon. "Why d'you think I'm taking these guys in?"

"Illegal camping?"

"Better than kidnapping my vampire daughter to blackmail the mayor's werewolf son," Liz said, Caroline still curled against her. Damon pulled a face, shrugging. "A few nights in jail and the fees they can't afford should be salt in the wound."

"I think they'd like the vegan option for their meals," Giulia spoke up. Liz chuckled, opening an arm to her; Giulia received her hug and her whispered, "Thank you."

"I'll see you at home," Caroline murmured to her mother, giving her another hug; she helped Liz load some of the wolfsbane-tranquilised werewolves into the prison-transporter for official booking. Giulia took out her phone, taking pictures, Liz did the same, confiscating evidence from the RV, from the site – the landmine fragments, the shotgun – in evidence bags.

"Guess I'll just dump 'em in the quarry," Damon shrugged, of the five dead werewolves – two were Giulia's, three Damon's – but Giulia shook her head.

"Waste not." She had Damon shift the bodies to Fell's tomb, warning him not to enter, and close the entrance after him. Even dead, their blood was still warm; if she could get to them, Katerina could feast. If not, at least the scent of their rotting corpses would add to her torment.

Giulia stamped out the fire, and by the time she and Caroline wandered to her car, the sky had lightened toward dawn.

"Thought you said no-one was gonna get hurt," Tyler admonished from the hood of her car. He had been waiting for them.

"I said _Caroline_ wasn't going to get hurt," Giulia corrected, unlocking her Beetle. "I don't negotiate with terrorises. And the gromits on your jeans better not scratch my paint." She indicated for him to shift his ass off her car, which he did.

"Sheriff Forbes okay?" Tyler asked.

"Yeah, it's like she does this thing for a living," Giulia smirked. Tyler rolled his eyes but climbed into the back. Giulia winced as she shoved the seat back in place. "The wolfsbane should've worn off by now; they'll have been booked for illegal camping and fire-starting. And if they don't leave town we've got enough to pin them for the murder of their friends." She slung herself into the seat, sighing with relief. She bit off the leather gloves that had protected her fingerprints from appearing on the shotgun and bomb, and the heat of the skillet, rummaging in her pocket for the keys. She turned the ignition, stepped on the clutch, and grimaced as she shifted gear, pain almost taking her breath away as she gripped the gearstick, but she ignored it. She needed to get Caroline home, get Tyler home, get _her_ home. The sound of her Beetle's engine was lulling, and she smiled tiredly to herself as the sky lightened to a bluebell hue tinged with orange and lavender, ignoring the pain in her hand as she shifted gear again at a red light.

"Oh, my God!" Giulia jumped. "Giulia, your hand!"

"I'll look at it later; I'm driving," she said, navigating the streets as the early-morning commuters she usually joined headed for Richmond made their pilgrimage to the freeway.

"No, Giulia, pull over, now!" Caroline said sternly, and Giulia sighed, doing what she was told. "Look at your hand!"

"What?" Giulia sighed, aggravated by sleep-deprivation and pain, and Caroline's annoyingly loud exclamations in her little quiet car.

"Oh," Tyler said from the back, as Giulia raised her right hand. She couldn't unfurl her fingers fully; and her palm and the back of her hand were greenish-tinged black from bruising.

"You've broken your hand!" Caroline cried, giving an exasperated growl, swatting irritably at the tiny darts sticking out of her neck. "Alright, you're going in the back with Tyler; I'm driving you to the hospital."

"No freaking way! This is a manual transmission; you think I'm going to let you ruin my gearbox!" Giulia blurted. "This car is essential to our road-trip, Car; I cannot risk that."

"All the more reason I should learn how to drive a stick," Caroline said fairly, watching Giulia literally clutch the steering-wheel to her, staring at Car, appalled, the sound of the gearbox grinding already echoing in her ears, making her twitch.

"I learned on a stick-shift," Tyler spoke up; Giulia clutched harder.

"Fine!" Caroline sighed, exasperated. She pulled out her phone, reclaimed from Jules, and dialled Damon. He appeared in less than a minute.

"Move." He indicated Giulia out of her seat with a few expressive flicks of his fingers, and Giulia grumbled but relinquished her car to him.

"How did you even drive this far with your hand like that?" Caroline asked.

"Adrenaline," Tyler said quietly. "Giulia reeked of it." Damon pulled up in front of the E.R. and they piled out. Giulia stared at Caroline, who murmured, "Oh," and tidied herself up, before frog-marching Giulia into the E.R.

Meredith was the attending doctor, in the fourteenth hour of a twelve-hour shift. Caroline bribed, cajoled and compelled Giulia to the top of the list amid colicky babies, drug-addicts and the usual mess of Mystic Falls' finest. Meredith took one look at her hand and sent her off for x-rays, which – after a few hours – showed that Giulia had several compound fractures to her hand.

"What were you doing _this_ time?" Meredith asked irritably; her bedside-manner sucked.

"Would you believe a rumble with some werewolves trying to push into our terr'tory?" Giulia said. "Are you prescribing me drugs?"

"It goes against my better judgement, but yes," Meredith sighed. "Why were you fighting werewolves?"

"They took Caroline."

"They didn't live to regret it, I presume," Meredith said, pulling a face.

"Five of them didn't," Giulia said, shrugging. "Ridiculous, isn't it? The odds were ten-to-three and Damon and I still came out on top."

"Did you get another concussion?" Meredith frowned. "Damon and you makes two."

"Liz was there, _but it's a secret_ ," Giulia whispered.

"Got it. Her little girl was taken, but the Council don't know about Caroline so she couldn't use Council resources," Meredith nodded. "Do you want a coloured cast?"

"Plain's good," Giulia sighed, reflecting that it was good she'd kept on top of her health-insurance payments.

"You don't want a black one?" Meredith asked. "It'll get less grubby."

"Okay, fine," Giulia mumbled.

"You know I'm not gonna let you drive with this cast on, right?" Meredith prompted, and Giulia glanced sharply at her, glaring. "You've broken your hand! You're not going to be handling a stick-shift and steering-wheel."

"I'd still be driving better than half the psychos in town," Giulia said imploringly, the prospect of being beholden to someone else to get her from A to B galling to her.

"Forget it, Giulia," Meredith said.

"This sucks," Giulia sighed grumpily, surprised when she lifted her hand to rub her exhausted eyes, and she clubbed herself in the face with a brand-new black cast, binding her hand from knuckles to wrist. She was disoriented from tiredness, grumpy, and in pain.

"Just for a few weeks," Meredith said, smiling sympathetically. "If you want my professional opinion, it will do you good to be forced to slow down for a little while."

"If I lose momentum I'll trip," Giulia countered quietly, stifling an enormous yawn.

"Well, fair enough," Meredith sighed. "But go easy on the tramadol, okay, and if there are any side-effects come straight off the pills, I'll prescribe you something else."

"Thanks," Giulia said softly. She slipped off the bench, took her prescription, and was hustled out of the E.R. by Meredith, keen to hand over to the new shift.

Damon drove them to their favourite diner, and Giulia popped a tramadol with her breakfast; by the time Damon stopped the Beetle in front of her house, she was high as a kite. She had the distinct benefit of _not_ having invited Damon or Caroline into her house, otherwise she'd never have shaken Caroline. They were both still rattled about what happened last night – Caroline had been tortured, but she had shaken it off the instant she had seen Giulia was injured. At least she respected that Giulia wouldn't take her blood.

"You sure you don't want me to stay?" Damon asked. Giulia gave him a look, he held up his hands, pulled a face and disappeared. She had been raised to be open-minded and independent; when Damon and Stefan had failed to remember she might need someone around her to be the adult, Damon didn't now get to ask. She hadn't had anyone looking after her for nine months; the line had been drawn, nobody could cross it now. Trying to reverse the roles wasn't going to work; she was the one who took care of people. Soothed feelings; fixed problems. Hid the bodies.

A few months ago, when she had really been struggling, she would have appreciated Damon being there for her at the hospital. But he hadn't been there for her when she'd needed someone to just _care_. And she'd never forget that. She had struggled, alone, and come out the other side of some very dark, very dangerous stuff she should never have been dragged into. By Damon. Because despite everything she had still…cared about him. Still cared about the bond they used to have, not realising until tonight that Damon had been pushing her away since he had killed her dad.

In his eyes, he had ruined her for him. Their bond could not survive what he'd done, and Giulia had been forever altered by it. Had turned her into…someone more like him; that, he couldn't forgive. He didn't _like_.

Fundamentally, Giulia didn't think she was like Damon. But he saw himself reflected in her. And he hid it well, but Damon was self-loathing.

She knew she could do anything; no-one had any right now to tell her she couldn't.

Giulia crawled over to the chaise, creating a nest of blankets, and fell into a deep pharmaceutical sleep; she had very strange dreams, dredging up a lot of mess she kept buried, warped and Burtonised like a demented leap down her own personal rabbit-hole.

She woke up shuddering a few hours later, dumping the tramadol in the trash, skin itching, brain churning with warped dreams Stephen King could've turned into an amazing movie. Obviously she would have to stick to regular pain-relief.

"That bad?" a voice said softly, as Giulia shoved her hand under the faucet, perplexed by the black cast on her right hand. She splashed cold water on her face with her left, nodding.

"Why do people think that's _fun_?"

"They obviously have little else in their lives that delights them," Elijah said softly. "What happened to your hand?"

"Three compound fractures," Giulia moaned miserably, head in her hands over the sink, feeling nauseous.

"How many of the werewolves did you kill?"

"Two."

"Not a bad start to the day. Your friend isn't hurt?"

"She's healed, but I'm sure Car's still upset," Giulia sighed. "Taking me to the hospital distracted her."

"It appears she has fixated on your injury to keep from dwelling on her own," Elijah said, handing Giulia her phone. "Seventeen texts and five voicemails, getting more frantic."

"Too bad she'd smell the tramadol in her food," Giulia sighed, rubbing her face. "How long was I out?"

"A good six hours," Elijah said, drawing her to him by her waist. "You obviously needed it." Giulia leaned into him, instantly relaxed, the itch and warped delusion fading away.

"I need to stop going to the E.R.," Giulia sighed. Especially if what they prescribed had such eerie side-effects on her psyche.

"Truly, you do," Elijah agreed. "What is this, the second time in a month?"

"Not including my mauling," Giulia mumbled against Elijah's shoulder. "Perhaps I should let you swaddle me in eiderdown."

"Perhaps your friends should learn to handle their own problems," Elijah suggested.

"What would I do with my time?"

"I have a few ideas."

* * *

 **A.N.** : I've had a few issues this week with power-cuts at home, so a _looong_ chapter for you after a long week of no updates!


	35. Jules in the Library with a Shotgun

**A.N.** : Hi everyone, thank you so much for all the reviews, I love 'em! This chapter...shows what Giulia is willing to endure to protect her friends.

* * *

 **Dangerous Beauty**

 _35_

 _Jules in the Library with a Shotgun_

* * *

To consume the feast she had been practicing with, and to say thank-you to Sheila and Jenna for the rides into Richmond over the course of the last week, Giulia had thought it would be nice to host a dinner-party. Select in-the-know guests they didn't have to watch their conversations around, and amazing (if she did say so herself) food; Rose had offered to help, and because of her guest-list, the dinner would be hosted at the Boarding House; she had recommended elasticated waistlines. So it was yet again working on that that led Giulia back to the Boarding House. Ric, curious about her project, had asked her to help him grade some essays, and wanting to use Giulia's project as an example to bored students how creative they could be with history, had joined her for a takeout dinner.

"I met Elijah the other day," he remarked.

"Did you?"

"At the tea-party. Could be more badass things to masquerade as than a historical writer," Ric sighed, looking grumpy.

"High-school history teacher role has already been filled, Mr Van Helsing," Giulia smirked. Ric quirked his eyebrows expressively, marking an essay with a red letter D.

"He's one scary dude," Ric sighed. "But, with nice hair… Jenna thinks he's charming."

"And you're jealous," Giulia chuckled, brutalising someone's essay – how did one confuse Elizabeth _Tudor_ and Elizabeth Taylor? "You can't be worried. Jenna adores you – it's annoying how often she gushes over you. I've suffered many a play-by-play on our way to school. Thank you, for that; I'm not traumatised enough already."

"Really?"

"In shuddering detail," Giulia said grimly.

"I just don't want her in harm's way; and it's easy to forget how dangerous that guy is when he's so calm and soft-spoken."

"Jenna knows who and what he is," Giulia said gently. "She's just a little more relaxed around him, because she knows I've got a contingency plan in place." Ric watched her.

"You know this isn't on you," Ric said solemnly. "You've no responsibility to anyone to get involved."

"I'm clever enough to affect the outcome," Giulia said, shrugging. "So why shouldn't I?"

"So this is about you being smarter than everyone else," Ric rolled his eyes, "not doing everything you can to help your friend."

"We're not friends," Giulia shrugged, unconcerned. She didn't _miss_ Elena. Or Bonnie. She felt so much lighter for not suffering their friendship. "But that doesn't mean I want Elena to die."

Ric sighed, looking over another essay. "You couldn't pay me to be in high-school again."

"Me neither," Giulia agreed. She frowned. "Aren't you supposed to be over at Jenna's now?"

"I'm staying the night – Jenna wants to _gently_ break Elena and Jeremy into the idea of me being around," Ric said.

"Has Jeremy even looked you in the eye yet?" Giulia asked, smirking.

"He tell you about that, or did Jenna?" Ric blushed.

"Oh, Jem. He gives me all the good stuff," Giulia smiled. "I wouldn't worry; the rate Jeremy goes through girls, the situation's bound to be reversed at some point."

"Well, that's something to look forward to," Ric shuddered, and Giulia laughed, handing him a pile of graded essays. "Guess you've finished your homework, Mr Saltzman."

"I guess so. Thanks for doing this, I appreciate it," Ric smiled.

"I know," Giulia smiled back.

"You stay here," Ric said, packing up his things. "I can see myself out."

"Mm. I'm at a very precarious point with this jelly," Giulia murmured thoughtfully.

"Well, I'm very excited to see the finished product," Ric smiled. "Let me know if I can bring anything."

"Just your fine girlfriend," Giulia said. "Be prepared for a glorious feast – and, close to midnight, indigestion that makes you wish for death." Ric chuckled, giving her a one-armed hug and left the kitchen, leaving Giulia to an Eden of blancmange, candied fruit and adorable quail-eggs for an almond-apricot kedgeree-type dish.

The idea of hosting a dinner-party for the people she enjoyed sounded like such a lovely idea – _grown-up_. She couldn't remember her dad having people over for dinner, _ever_ ; nobody wanted to come to the creepiest house in Mystic Falls if they didn't have to. And this was better than the dinner she was hosting for the Historical Society; she actually liked her guests, and they truly appreciated the scale of her research for the dinner.

She had made sure Liz wasn't working that night; that Sheila, Ric and Jenna could come; that Caroline and Rose would help her get everything ready; that Damon wouldn't make any snide jokes at Tyler's expense, that neither Bonnie nor Elena would be there; and Jenna had invited Elijah.

She licked blueberry glaze off her finger, pulling a thoughtful face at the heat from some fresh ginger, and glanced up sharply, turning off the stove as she heard something clatter loudly down the corridor, and a groaning noise. She turned off the stove, tiptoeing the corridor, and her lips parted as Ric staggered, his hands bloody as they left his stomach, colliding with the credenza, rolling to the floor on his back. Giulia peered at him, the ring on his finger, and breathed a sigh of relief, before ducking, the needle avoiding her neck as she dodged, striking out.

The scrawny werewolf grunted as she snatched out to grab and sadistically maim his groin, dislocating his jaw as he buckled, and sent him sprawling on his back with a shuddering kick. Pain shot through her hand, which she had used out of habit to punch him, forgetting the cast, her broken hand.

How many others were with him? At least five, the ones she and Damon had _allowed_ to live. The arrests, bail-money, hundreds of dollars in fines and five dead friends _should_ have been enough to coerce these guys to leave town. But they were dealing with supernatural ego and pack mentality over common-sense.

Another attacker jumped in, shorter, stockier; she took a hit to the face that bloodied the inside of her cheek, sending a spray of her blood against the wall as she groaned and buckled, playing possum. Better to give in quickly than sustain injuries she would take weeks to heal from; pain radiated through the back of her skull, and she dropped like a stone.

She came blearily into consciousness, moaning; moving her head shattered pain through her skull, her brain pounding against the bone. Concussion. She blew out a breath on a sigh, squinting in the dark. The library swam into focus, all of the shelves doubled, flickering with distorted shadows, and she was dimly aware of a crackling noise behind her, uncomfortably hot. If they'd set fire to her library they were _dead_.

She then became acutely aware of the weight around her torso, her arms, and the stinging discomfort around her neck. She lowered her eyes without moving her head; chains bound her to a familiar high-backed chair, bending her arms to the arms of the chair; someone had put a _collar_ on her.

"Morning, sunshine," a voice said brightly. Skinny, eerie werewolf guy smirked at her, holding two chains.

"Not that I'm not flattered by the attention," she moaned, "but isn't all of this _overkill_?"

"Y'know, I saw this movie once – some torture-porn flick – and they had this collar device that was _really cool_ ," the guy said joyfully. "So I just modified it some, and when I pull –" Giulia hissed at the unexpected pain shooting from the back of her neck. Was this guy trying to paralyse her?

"You keep doing that, my head's coming clean off," Giulia hissed, glaring at him.

"So," a familiar voice said, and Giulia rolled her eyes. "I hear that you have the moonstone."

"You again," Giulia sighed, rearranging her posture in the chair; grand, queenly, _bored_. Jules sauntered over, shotgun over her shoulder. "I'm afraid you're a little behind the times. The moonstone is old news."

"Tyler doesn't think so."

"Did you torture that information out of him?"

"There was some coercion. Here's how this is going to work," Jules said, prowling closer. "You're going to tell us where the moonstone is."

"And why would I do that?" Giulia sighed. Jules glanced at the guy with the chains, who jerked them. Pain circled the back of her neck, and she grunted in discomfort, then laughed. " _Pain_?! Is that all you've got?"

"It's all we need," Jules smiled. Giulia scoffed. These people – were _animals_. They could smell fear, would enjoy her pain. So she wouldn't give them the satisfaction; they didn't deserve her fear. And they would regret her pain.

"Well, you're welcome to do you worst," Giulia shrugged within the confines of her chains, her head throbbing. "It should be entertaining. Understand that whatever you do to me is futile; I simply can't tell or show you where the moonstone is." She had taken mystical precautions to make sure the truth could not be stolen or coerced from her.

"Oh, I'm sure with the right motivation, you can," Jules smirked. Giulia sighed.

"You attacked Damon, and failed to kill him, or me; you kidnapped my best-friend and five of _your friends_ died," Giulia said. "Your _motivation_ needs a more thorough planning process."

"I prefer the element of surprise," Jules smiled nastily.

"You mean you prefer reckless and sloppy," Giulia corrected, annoyed by the hot blood trickling down her cleavage. She scowled at the younger girl pointing the shotgun at her, glaring. "You, yeah, the liability. Put the gun down, unless one of these guys actually showed you how to use it. See, the thing is, the deck is still stacked in my favour." She leaned back in her chair. "You've come in here, with your thugs and your guns, and torturer – and the pack slut. But you've forgotten one very important thing."

"And what's that?"

" _I'm human_. There's only so much my body can endure, and I can't be coerced by anything to reveal where the moonstone is," Giulia shrugged. "Unless you have vampire-blood to heal me from what you do, it'll be over very quickly. And if you feed me vampire blood, I'm in danger of turning if you do one wrong thing – and it'll be my advantage – _again_. So put the shotgun down; it's redundant. _You can't hurt me_."

"Oh. We can," Jules smirked.

Giulia sighed heavily, rolling her eyes. "Torturing me won't make any difference to the outcome. _I cannot tell you_."

"You talk a big game," Jules said quietly. "We'll see how long that lasts. Stevie." Giulia sighed, resolving not to show fear, or her pain. If they were going to torture her, she'd retaliate, watching the other wolves, learning their tells, watching who winced, the ashen cast to the other girl's skin as she averted her eyes, shocked.

"Really, you're going to stick me _there_?" Do you _want_ this to be over in minutes? Clearly you never studied anatomy! Have you even done this before?!" Giulia asked, as Stevie approached her with another red-hot blade still hissing from the fire. It was hard to focus on anything through her pain, but her irritation that he was _botching_ her torture was too much. He was obviously used to torturing vampires who healed instantly, so it didn't matter where he stuck them.

She was making them uncomfortable. Delirious as she was with pain, adrenaline flooding her body so violently she shook, bleeding and broken, but she wasn't _breaking_.

Nausea churned violently, she was covered in sweat; her cast was ripped on the carpet, her hand crushed by Stevie, fingers shattered and trembling. Her left leg was an agony she could barely see through, adrenaline pushing off shock; Stevie had cut open her thigh and split her femur, twisting the blade to open the bone, revealing her marrow. He had left the blade there, unadulterated agony rolling through her body. The scent of her own blood made her gag.

Damon wouldn't be happy; her blood had ruined the rug, her right foot bare, the tips of her toes scattered on the bloody carpet where Stevie had let them fall from his gardening shears, the sole of her other foot black from bruising and burns where he'd smacked her foot with a burning log from the fire, pain shattering through her every time movement jostled her leg. The wounds to her shoulders wept, soaking her top. It felt like she was on fire; and she had to keep her eyes off the knife through her femur. Blood trickled hotly down her neck where he had sliced her face, and her cheeks were swollen from his hits, after plucking some of her teeth.

She had to laugh, though, when his vervain toys did nothing. She saw the look he exchanged with Jules; she knew she smelled odd, she knew she had been hurt by the Gilbert device – but she was _not_ a vampire. But she was trained and lethal, anticipating reactions; that made her fast, made it seem like she was reacting with superhuman instinct.

"Are you bored yet?" she asked, through swollen, bloody lips. She felt like she had when she'd had four teeth pulled for her orthodontic treatments. Her body was flooded with adrenaline to combat the pain; and she gave a shaky laugh at Stevie's frustration. She'd profiled him in seconds; a sexual sadist. He enjoyed what he was doing to her; but her reactions were making him angry. Her pain, her fear should've gotten him off; she refused to scream in pain, to show fear. She refused to let them get to her. She eyed the others, bored; they were still rattled from her profiling of them, pinpointing the sorest areas of their insecurity.

"Let me guess," she had panted, her leg shaking, toes curled in pain as the sole of her foot throbbed. She eyed one of the guys lurking uneasily behind Jules. "Foster-care, right? In and out of group homes and juvi until you were eighteen; by then, you were up to your teeth in a gang. Initiation was a random execution. Second you turned, you could smell everyone for what they were… And you – military. Good family, mildly religious, you grew up athletic, respecting your mother. That's why you can't look me in the eye; you know she'd be ashamed, and you've never hurt a woman before. It's not in your nature to be cruel. But you're loyal to your alpha, because he's military like you, frustrated with having to leave that life behind… What's your name?"

"Hayley Marshall."

"Adopted, right? Upper-middle-class parents, you were their only child. Indulged, taken care of; no responsibilities. At school, you were popular because you were pretty," Giulia said. "But you always knew you weren't really their daughter, and you didn't really deserve them, or trust that they wouldn't give you back. You remembered the group-homes, the foster-care. That's why you pushed them. You acted out. Hung out with the wrong guys, tried things you shouldn't. All the guys knew if they wanted a good time, give you a couple drinks. You got a reputation for being the life of the party. Until one day, it all went _tragically_ wrong."

"It was an accident," Hayley bit out, gritting her teeth.

"Still dead," Giulia said curtly. "See, that's what I don't get. You want to lift the curse but how do you _not_ deserve this? Do none of you have any respect for the fact you are what you are because you _killed_ people?"

"We've all made mistakes," Jules said quietly. Giulia watched her carefully.

"And you carry yours with you," she said softly. "Teenage abortion. You were frightened and unprepared… Guess they are already people. And now you take in and try and look after every stray you stumble across." Her eyes flitted to Hayley, incongruous amongst them, young, untrained, self-absorbed and ultimately a liability. Selfish, irresponsible, but not dangerous.

She let out a groan, laughing as Jules took the knife from Stevie and stabbed her.

* * *

He stood quietly in the dark, and blinked at the vibration in his pocket. Stepping away from the window and sighing, he glanced at the illuminated screen, and frowned.

"Jenna…to what do I owe the pleasure of this call?" he asked.

" _Elijah…you know your promise to Elena? I don't want to overreact, but Ric was at the Boarding House with Giulia and he was supposed to be home hours ago_ ," Jenna said anxiously. " _Ric told me the werewolves attacked Damon at the house and took Caroline and – I'm worried. Would you mind meeting me there_?"

Elijah swallowed. "I'm already at the Boarding House."

" _You are_?"

"Sheila Bennett is on her way, but she is travelling from Richmond," Elijah said quietly, glancing back at the house, the windows glowing amber. "Your Alaric is here, too… I can't get in." There was a pause.

" _I'm on my way over_ ," Jenna said sternly.

"Don't park on the drive, I shall meet you," Elijah said softly. He met the shining Mini Cooper at the side of the road, opening Jenna's door for her.

"So…why were you at the Boarding House?"

"I had the same instinct as you," Elijah said softly, adding urgently, aware his voice broke as he said, "Professor Bennett has taken magical precaution to alert her if any of you come to harm; she called me and told me to get over here. But _I can't get in_."

"She's on her way over here?" Jenna asked. "After work she's usually at least one julep in."

"She's headed straight here from her school campus," Elijah said softly. "She knows Giulia refuses vampire-blood to heal." Jenna gazed at him uneasily, then frowned, schooling her features into a determined frown. He sighed softly. "I smelled their blood from miles away."

"Ric has his ring; he'll be okay," Jenna said calmly.

"The werewolves are still inside," Elijah said softly. "Alaric and Giulia will not thank me for letting you walk into danger."

"I'm not asking you to _let_ me; I asked you here to come _with_ me," Jenna said, with the stern bite of a parent. The front-door stood ajar, so tantalising; a dark shape was slumped on the expensive rug in the foyer. "Oh my god – _Ric_!" Jenna pulled her arm from his grip, darting into the house, to the floor, to her boyfriend, glassy-eyed, his antique ring glinting on his finger. Jenna breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of it; she glanced up, her expression urgent, and gestured at him. "Get in here!"

He stepped over the threshold, unbuttoning his jacket.

Elijah strolled to the panelled library, following Giulia's blood, her uneven heartbeat, the stench of werewolves sweating as they watched her brave their torture. He could taste her courage on the air; their discomfort.

He smiled at the sound of the shotgun being snatched out of the girl's hands by the jumpier, uncouth, tattooed one, the barrel aimed at him, striding into the room. He descended the steps, strolling up to Giulia sat like an empress in her blood-soaked chair, a wicked blade wedged in her split femur, bruised and swollen. Gently, he tucked a lock of her sweat-soaked, bloody hair behind her ear, gently pressing her earlobe between his thumb and forefinger, an affectionate little touch that always made her squirm in her sleep, preening like a cat.

Her eyes closed, and she turned her face away, the first time showing some other emotion than irony and disdain.

She was a mess.

And she knew it.

She didn't want him to see her like this – broken. Not beautiful. But she didn't understand; there was so much in her defiance, a strength of character that transcended her physical beauty.

"I'm afraid your futile little exercise has come to an end," he said softly. His family always knew when he was at his most dangerous, as did Giulia; his voice became calmer, and so _gentle_.

"We want the moonstone."

"Yes, I have been made aware," Elijah said quietly. "You should have listened to the young-lady behind me. I believe you were warned to leave Mystic Falls."

"We want the –"

"Moonstone, yes," Elijah sighed.

"As you can see, precautions have been taken to ensure its safety. I am one of those," Elijah smiled lethally. "You should not have harmed her."

Fidgety choked up his hold on the shotgun; Elijah bent the barrel in half, the butt shattering as the wolf crumpled, his bloody heart dropping to the ruined rug. The stoic African-American set his jaw and darted forward; Elijah didn't bat an eye as he plucked the heart from his shattered ribcage. He set his eyes on scrawny, who dropped to his knee, covering his head with his jacket.

"Stand up, dear," Elijah sighed. "At least meet your fate like a man." Scrawny shook as he rose, chin tucked to his chest. Elijah smiled lethally, choking the wolf until he passed out. "And what a fate it shall be."

"What the hell went on in here?" a masculine voice asked, and Elijah glanced up from the chains. "Oh my _god_." Alaric Saltzman, pale and confused, stared at Giulia enthroned by the fire. His eyes went straight to Elijah. " _What did you do_?!"

"Ric? Wait – I invited Elijah in, I – Oh my god!" Jenna's eyes were the size of quarters as she stumbled into the library after Mr Saltzman, tripping down the stairs. "Oh my god. Giulia! Oh my… _Giulia_." Jenna tiptoed around the dead werewolves, tears spilling down her cheeks, staggering to her knees beside Giulia, panicking, overwhelmed by emotion, powerless to help.

"Until Professor Bennett arrives, we will need towels," Elijah said softly. "Giulia, I'm going to remove the chains and collar and that knife. May I?" Giulia lifted her finger in acknowledgement, closing her eyes and inhaling shakily. Delicately, respecting her injuries, Elijah removed the collar, unwrapping the many chains used to bind Giulia to the chair, and swiftly plucked the blade from her femur. Her tiny gasp shot through him, and he took in her face, shining with sweat and her own blood, cut up and bruised, swollen until she was almost unrecognisable. Elijah was trying not to _see_ her injuries, knowing how embarrassed she was by her appearance, being seen…to be _vulnerable_. Giulia was not a young-woman who knew how to be taken care of; independent and ferociously protective and loyal to her friends. She was the protector, the shield in the shadows. She had forgotten how to be the one other people took care of.

"What happened to the girls?" he asked, clamping his jacket over Giulia's thigh to stem the blood.

"I only saw two blurs," Jenna shrugged, looking stricken and nauseated, her eyes, bloodshot and teary, on Giulia's face. Elijah's ears twitched, and he tilted his head toward the sound.

"Professor Bennett is here," he said softly.

"I'll go meet her," Jenna said, darting up from the ruined carpet, blood staining the knees of her jeans.

" _Baby_ ," Professor Bennett sighed as she entered the room, her eyes widening ever so slightly as she drifted over to Giulia, clucking her tongue. Elijah glanced at her; she'd known exactly what was happening the moment he had contacted her. She had set up early-warning systems on all of those she cared about; one glimpse into a flame in her office and she had seen through the fire in the Boarding House library. "It's alright, sugar, I'm here."

Elijah offered her his hand before she could even ask, setting her things down on the leather-sofa, pushing up her sleeves. She stooped down to the carpet, clicking her tongue, picking up Giulia's teeth, the tips of her toes from her right foot. Elijah clenched his jaw, squashing his rage, his heartbreak – how deeply upset he was at the sight of her, what had been done to her, and how bravely she had endured it. Sheila Bennett's hand was as warm and soft as it had been the first time she had used him to channel more power to siphon werewolf venom from Giulia. Her attention was entirely on Giulia; she closed her eyes, and Elijah felt the gentle tug of her channelling power. The only indication any magic was being used was Giulia: the swelling reduced, the bruising faded, and the blood soaked into the carpet seeped back toward Giulia. As she squirmed in discomfort, still trying not to make any noise – still trying to appear strong, indifferent, as if she wasn't suffering – Elijah reached down and took her hand, her fingers healed, straight; she gave a shaky breath, and clutched his hand, _hard_ , raising her eyes to his for the first time since he had appeared in the library.

It was eerie, watching the tips of her toes seamlessly reattach, her jagged thigh wound knit itself back together leaving smooth, unmarked flesh, she finally grimaced and whimpered in discomfort as her molars fixed themselves into her bloody gums.

When Sheila was finished, Elijah let out a pent-up breath, pressing his eyes closed to counteract the slight dizziness, a side-effect of Professor Bennett channelling him.

Giulia was, physically, flawless. Not a mark remained, though she was still covered in sweat, some of her own blood, her clothes were torn, singed. As Professor Bennett sighed and went to pour herself a drink, her hand shaking, Jenna silently crying against Alaric Saltzman's chest, staring stoically at Giulia, concealing how upset he was. It had been a long time since Elijah had seen torture like that. And the werewolves called his kind the remorseless monsters.

Slowly, Giulia shifted in the chair, wiggling her toes, not looking at her left thigh, subtly flexing her fingers, her jaw working, eyes glassy and faraway. Elijah went down on his knees, clasping Giulia's now-unbroken hands in his, reaching up to tuck her hair behind her ears. Her skin was pale and flawless, under the mess of sweat and blood; but her pale eyes glowed and came into focus as he leaned in, pressing his forehead against hers, stealing a much-needed kiss. He cradled her face, letting her see how upset he was by what had happened to her, pressing another kiss to her lips, stroking her cheek with his thumb.

"Let's get you cleaned up," he said softly. She shook her head slightly, shifting on the blood-stained chair, and stood, testing her weight on her own feet. He frowned in concern as he watched her drift out of the library, and followed after exchanging a look with Jenna. "Giulia?" He followed, and found Giulia in the corridor leading into the foyer, frowning intensely at some of the panelling. In the dim amber lighting, Elijah watched Giulia scowl intensely at the wood, and Giulia reached out, feeling the trim of the panelling.

"Giulia?"

"Something's different," she murmured vaguely, and Elijah watched her hook her fingertips around the panelling, drawing open a hidden door. The scent of dust tickled his nose, obviously it hadn't been disturbed in a long time, and Giulia's lips parted in delighted surprise.

"You'd no idea this was here?" Elijah said softly, as Giulia sank to her knees, half-disappearing into a secret compartment. Despite everything, he took a moment to enjoy the view.

"None," Giulia said softly, and Elijah glanced over his shoulder as Sheila Bennett appeared, frowning softly, holding a drink. Giulia's dark head, covered in cobwebs and dust, reappeared, dragging an old trunk with her, piled high with some very old cardboard boxes. Opening one, Elijah caught a glimpse of well-loved paperback novels, letters, leather photo-albums, an old newspaper and journals, all covered in a layer of dust. Giulia reached in slowly, frowning at a handful of small vintage-looking photographs. He caught a glimpse of a photograph of several people in vintage clothing, clustered in front of a mint-blue Oldsmobile: he had to take a second-glance at the dark-haired woman. So like Giulia, but her looks were more mature, in her late-twenties, staggeringly beautiful, all cheekbones and glorious penetrating eyes full of irony and delight, a tall dark drink of water; he thought it was possibly her mother, Gianna, but Giulia's mother's eyes had been a blazing blue like sapphires. This…was an older Giulia, with shorter hair and a fuller figure she had grown into. She stood with her arms and ankles crossed, smirking, next to a dark-haired man who looked very like her, a young teenage-boy, Caroline Forbes with her hair perfectly curled, and two others he didn't recognise, a man with chestnut curls and an exquisite teenage girl with a beautiful pale oval Madonna face and shimmering blonde hair. The clothes they wore did not look like reproduction, the photograph was old, but in the brief glimpse he saw of it, he knew it was without a doubt Giulia.

Giulia's lips parted in confusion; she caught his eye as she tucked the photographs away, and he knew she didn't want him prying, however curious he was.

Sheila Bennett pressed a fingertip to the old wood panelling, her expression thoughtful as she looked at the smear of blood on it.

"What are you seeing?"

"All magic leaves traces," Sheila said softly. She glanced at Giulia. "Someone hid all this with magic, a long time ago."

"Who?"

"I don't know, baby, but I do know somethin' special bound the spell," Sheila said.

"What's that?"

"Blood," Sheila said. "Only one person could reveal this hidey-hole. The same person who sealed it.

"You mean me," Giulia said quietly. "How is that possible?" She glanced down at the photographs in the box. "I've never seen this stuff before. Except the trunk."

"You've seen this before?"

"Yeah. It's up in the attic. Full of my uncle, Joshua's things," Giulia said quietly, staring at the photographs in her hands, confused.

"There's something _odd_ about this place," Sheila frowned, placing her palm against the wood, eyes closed.

" _Very_ ," Giulia said softly, opening a vintage jewellery box. Elijah saw the confused look on her face as she plucked out a delicate pearl ring, dusty, but identical the one on her finger.

Sheila Bennett opened her eyes, gave Giulia a perplexed look, and glanced at Elijah. "You got a pen and paper?"

"In the kitchen," Giulia murmured vaguely, and Elijah followed his nose to the more modern kitchen, where Giulia's books were spread out. He picked up a notebook, turning it to the next clean page, and handed it to Sheila.

"What did you see?" Elijah asked curiously. Sheila offered her hands to them, and Elijah took it without hesitation; Giulia glanced at him, but clasped Sheila's fingers. Closing his eyes, he saw a shadowy, ghostlike jumble of images. Giulia, laughing; a grand Schubert concerto echoing, distorted; a teenage boy plucking weeds in a vegetable-garden; agonised screams; the crackle of a fire; Caroline Forbes' voice sighing softly; the undeniable surge of grief and pain and elation; a young-woman's lilting Irish voice reading haltingly; he could _feel_ magic, he could feel pain and joy, delight. There was a strange, echoing quality to the images, ghostlike, intangible, hazy images not quite in focus. He saw a glimpse of model airplanes drifting around in the air over a familiar garden; saw supernatural fights; Mozart by candlelight; Giulia lounging in bed with the young-looking woman he recognised from the photograph; Giulia crying, her back against the same cellar door where she had discovered her father's dead body, Caroline on the other side, tipping a bottle to her lips; laughter, as Giulia helped prepare a meal with a man who looked strikingly like her, and a shy teenage boy who looked at her with utter adoration and respect in his eyes; a beautiful, crazed woman spewing vitriol, violent and abusive to a young-woman Elijah thought he knew.

Elijah released Sheila Bennett's hand on a gasp, the feeling of terror and ecstasy overwhelming him. "What was that?"

"A scar," Sheila said softly, "on the very fabric of the world. Whatever was happening while that trunk was being hidden, was so strong an event it scarred itself into the very memory of this place."

"That can happen?" Giulia asked.

"Where d'you think ghosts come from?" Sheila smiled sadly. "They're not restless spirits; they're Nature's memories. Some are stronger, more devastating than others. Like us, Nature's most traumatic memories stick around. When there's magic involved, it helps."

"Do you know who hid this stuff here with my blood?" Giulia asked, eyeing the hidden cupboard.

"No. Took talent to hide this so completely, I can only barely sense magic's been used, and only because you just broke the spell," Sheila said, looking _fond_. She frowned at the cupboard, though, as if trying to figure something out. "Oh, hold on. There's a message here, someone's left."

"I can't see anything else in there," Giulia frowned into the dusty gloom of the cupboard.

"Mm-mm," Sheila hummed, reaching out her hand, closing her eyes. Giulia's lips parted, and Elijah shifted uneasily as magical writing appeared, shimmering, on the wall. Sheila copied it down exactly without opening her eyes, as the lettering faded.

"What does it say?" Elijah asked. A vampire, but a _Muggle_ , Elijah had never learned how to understand magical writing. It was for all intents and purposes an alien language; something Isak and Kol had shared with Mother, something he and his other siblings had respected but never understood.

"It's the spell created specifically to…send the trunk here," Sheila frowned at the notepad.

"What do you mean, _send_?" Elijah frowned.

"Not sure," Sheila murmured.

"Who left the message?" Giulia asked. Sheila blinked over at her.

" _You_ did."

* * *

 **A.N.** : Intrigue! I'm afraid you won't get answers until the sequel!


	36. The 'L' Word

**A.N.** : Thank you so much for all the reviews! I suppose we all needed a Tuesday pick-me-up! This chapter: the repercussions of torture. PTSD. And some Giulijah smut, because, why not?!

* * *

 **Dangerous Beauty**

 _36_

 _The 'L' Word_

* * *

The contents of the trunk and the mystery of its concealment gave Giulia an unhealthy outlet through which to pour all her considerable mental faculties, rather than confront what the werewolves had done to her.

She was a master at concealing her emotions, her pain; but her behaviour at home was her tell. Outsider, she kept it together; with what they had going on, everything they anticipated, she had no option but to keep going. But at home, she was suffering. Elijah didn't need a degree in psychology and profiling to see Giulia was, whether she acknowledged it or not, suffering from PTSD.

Sleepless, restless, she never turned her back to the windows or door, seeing things in the shadows, jumpy, going deathly pale and almost catatonic as she sat on the study floor in her t-shirt and underwear, Firenze purring on her shoulders, tail switching idly, nuzzling her ear and neck affectionately, sensing her inner-turmoil and pain, hands shaking as she pulled her silver headphones on, her homework and projects and the contents of the old _Louis Vuitton_ trunk spilling over the polished parquet floor, illuminated by a few lamps at three a.m., the shadows darkening under her eyes like bruises as the sun started to rise, memorising the contents of neat leather journals, poring over vintage photograph-albums, looking confused as she read old letters and grimoires and recognising her own handwriting, on vellum envelopes of seeds, and the annotations in paperback novels.

Finally, he'd had enough. He didn't dare go through the contents of the trunk and boxes, just the look on Giulia's face as she had gone through that first handful of photographs told him that it was none of his business, that Giulia was _confused_ by it. But that didn't stop him moving the trunk out of Giulia's reach. He had had enough of trying to coax her away from it and talk to him; so he hid the trunk.

"You hid – you have no right to do that!" Giulia gasped, staring.

"I have every right, when I'm concerned you're using its contents to avoid having to face what the werewolves did to you," Elijah said fairly. "Giulia, you were tortured."

"And Sheila healed me," Giulia said, with a bite, not meeting his eye.

"No-one can go through what you did without it having an effect," Elijah said gently, "not even you."

"I'm _fine_ –"

"You are not!"

"Don't – tell me how I _feel_!"

"I'm not – I'm telling you how _I_ feel!" Elijah said shakily. "I have to watch you, in pain, not knowing how to handle it, not – not _letting me in_ … You were there for me, in a way no-one else has ever dared be. I have never shared those memories with anyone… Seeing you in that chair _broke_ my _heart_. Please don't push me away… You don't always have to be the protector; please let me be here for you."

"I don't – The only person I…" Giulia blurted, biting her tongue, her eyes full of frustrated emotion, and her voice was thick with it when she shuddered a gasp: "I want my _dad_ , Elijah. And I can't have him; he's _gone_. Because of Damon, and Stefan protecting Elena, and I was _hurt_ ; and they're still _protecting Elena_. And I'm on my own, because of them; because of Damon. And they don't _care_ … I am working things out, Elijah, it may not be the way you want or the order, but I am. I'm letting go of the relationship I used to have with Damon. I'm not an innocent little girl who doesn't see the bad things; I'm too disillusioned by him to ever be able to go back to the person he wanted me to stay like forever. It upset me that he doesn't care about me anymore; but I don't _need_ him, not the way he needs Stefan. So they can have each other; they can have Elena. I'm not going to let it upset me that they prefer her; it's their mistake to lose this time with me."

Elijah gazed at her, frowning gently. Her relationship with Damon and Stefan had been fractious since he had known her; it had devolved to toleration rather than friendship. Now, it was live and let live; Giulia didn't seem to care about being actively involved in their lives at all. That was her decision, her self-preservation, and he couldn't help feel there was a subtle lesson in that for him.

"And…what the werewolves did to you?" he asked hesitantly.

"I took it as an excellent time to learn who my true friends are," Giulia said softly, after a moment's thought. Caroline Forbes' friendship, he knew instinctively, would never be questioned; as much as she claimed she didn't _need_ Stefan or Damon as her family, she had willingly put herself in harm's way, fighting despite the odds, conquering what was about her strength, to protect her friend. If Giulia was diagnosed on the autistic spectrum, he wasn't surprised she had bonded even more deeply with Caroline while the rest of her life crumbled around her.

"You know Stefan and Damon didn't kill the alpha?" he said carefully.

"I know; Mason got back into town that afternoon," Giulia sighed, shrugging slightly. "It's better he was there settling things with that Brody guy rather than helping me. He's helped all of us by dealing with the alpha."

"We did not manage to scare them all off," Elijah murmured, and sighed heavily, drawing Giulia to him by her waist, coaxing her to put her arms around him.

"I'm not worried about a slut," Giulia sighed softly. The only werewolf foolish enough to stay in Mystic Falls was the pretty, younger one Giulia had nicknamed the 'party favour'. "Mystic Falls is pretty, it's affluent, there are few vampires, and it's surrounded by woods, of course it appeals." He knew Sheriff Forbes had impounded the vehicles belonging to the now-dead werewolves; he and Giulia had discussed the unlikelihood Jules would get far, having fled Mystic Falls. Werewolves were a rare breed.

"If she stays and gets killed, that's not on me," Giulia said softly. "She was warned to leave."

His own misgivings and Giulia's suspicion had drawn them together, for the first time working _with_ rather than against each other. The game had changed; lines had been drawn. Alliances had not so much shifted as solidified; arguments had shaken foundations, feathers had been ruffled, egos bruised, and Elijah was proud to have Giulia as his ally. When push came to shove, she placed her faith in him.

And that meant more to him than she could ever know.

She was not a breathless acolyte starving or his attention; she was not concealing her duplicity, using him for her own means. Giulia was _herself_. Brilliant, courageous. Devoted to those she cared about, making it no secret her motivations differed from his; appreciating he had his own reasons for putting her friends in danger; but not believing he was capable, even after what Elijah now knew of him, to kill his brother And disagreeing with him that it was best to do so.

But they both knew theirs was the strongest alliance. His past, and her brilliance gave them an indisputable advantage; as did their dissociation from Elena Gilbert. They could do whatever was necessary, without guilt, to achieve their ends – and now, because of her newfound freedom from emotional ties or loyalty to Damon, Stefan or Elena, Giulia could act without regard for their feelings, their _approval_ , and seeking none; she was doing this because she could, and she cared about him. People could think of Giulia as arrogant for manoeuvring the sacrifice to her favour without any emotional attachment to the people involved; she was loyal to the memory of her friendship with Elena, and that was enough to keep her interested in pulling the strings, shaping the future. It wasn't just that she enjoyed; she did. But she was also…a very generous, unselfish person, courageous and loyal to a fault.

But she was still struggling; and she wouldn't let him in.

And that hurt, because he knew why. He _knew_ Giulia. And no matter how much she wanted to enjoy him, lived in the moment with him, accepted but did not dwell on the inevitable tragedy of their separation, he knew she wouldn't let herself rely on him. And that was a horrible thing to know.

As much as he loved her, for her own self-preservation she would never truly let him in. And that broke his heart more than witnessing her torture, powerless to help her; he wanted to…to be the one she turned to, her partner in all things…he realised how futile that was. Giulia was mortal; she resolutely avoided any possibility of turning into a vampire; and so she could not join him. Nor would he truly want her to. He wanted her to _live_. To have divine adventures; to love; to grow; to enjoy a family of her own; he could offer her only _danger_. The prospect of an existence defined by his sadistic, lying murderer of a brother. The sacrifice was but a taste of what Niklaus was capable of; they both knew he was lurking in the shadows, waiting, _stalking_. Because that was what he did; there was no-one who understood Niklaus' tactics better than Elijah, only in this game Elijah had the advantage. He had _Giulia_. And she was glorious.

Her recent trauma had only served to sharpen her already devastating brilliance; she used her intellect as a shield, the way Elijah used his skills as an artist, carpenter, jeweller, a lover of music to _create_ things. Giulia used her schoolwork and research to push aside the memories she could not face, and the sacrifice, the _game_. When it was over, when she had to _relax_ …that was when it would truly hit her, if she kept going on this way. It was her intellect that protected Giulia; not him. She could always rely on her own brilliance: Mind over mind.

She devolved, though, day by day; what the werewolves had done to her, combined with no acknowledgement of it by people who should have protected her – Damon, Stefan – continued to scar her mind, affecting her more than she realised. Only he was close enough to notice; it was the only way she trusted him to be relied on. She allowed herself to be vulnerable around him, to be frustrated and confused and overwhelmed by what she didn't understand, upset and distracted and physically ill from what had been done to her, on edge, jumpy, tearful at four a.m. after a sleepless night, jolting awake in a cold-sweat after reliving the same nightmare, finding her father's dead body by the cellar-door in the Boarding House – the same place she hadn't brought herself to set foot inside since she was tortured there. If that wasn't an indication of how she felt about the whole incident; she wouldn't she wouldn't go into the library even for the books. Elijah had cleaned up in the mess, hidden away the scrawny wolf for a lingering death, and taken the ruined rug to be incinerated; the bodies, he had dumped in the tomb with Katerina. Giulia hadn't asked what happened after Sheila healed her; and Elijah hadn't told her.

To say Alaric Saltzman was angry and concerned that Giulia had been tortured, and was romantically entangled with Elijah, was an understatement; he wondered which upset him more. In his mind, either way Giulia was in danger.

He turned on the light, chasing away the meagre dawn light gently kissing the room; Giulia jumped, her eyes glazed and bloodshot with desperate exhaustion, Firenze glanced over, purring from her shoulders, and Giulia pulled her silver headphones off one ear.

"The nightmare again?" he asked gently. If it wasn't discovered her father's dead body, she relived the night Tyler Lockwood had turned; or the night she realised Caroline Forbes had been murdered; or the night _he_ had been murdered. She carried his trauma with her. During her waking hours, Giulia blocked what she could not handle; it leaked into her dreams, trapping her in nightmares. The venom had plucked at the scar; her torture had sliced open the wound, and her psyche was warring for control, to heal, to face what she had to for her own survival.

"I can't close my eyes," she said hoarsely, her hands shaking as she raised them to her head, Firenze dipping his head curiously, nuzzling her hand. She scratched his head distractedly, looking desperate and delirious, small photographs, lettered envelopes, journals, sheet-music and grimoires spread around her. Elijah sighed, padding into the room, barefoot, and squatted down behind her, hands on her waist.

"Did you leave the house earlier?"

"I went for a run," Giulia said heavily.

"You showered without me," he said softly.

"Comes a point where a girl's got to shave her legs and use a hot-oil treatment on her hair alone," Giulia said, turning to stamp a kiss against his jaw. "Especially when someone keeps stealing her conditioner."

"Guilty," Elijah sighed, lips twitching into a smile. He peered over his shoulder at the elaborate diary-entries, the illustrated, incomprehensible grimoire pages, baby-photographs in an old album, annotations in _Call of the Wild_ , a photograph of Giulia. "Have you made any headway with all of this?"

"None. The more I look into it, the more confused I am," Giulia admitted. She held up a photograph of her and the similar featured man he had seen in the other photographs, grinning with a baby in his arms in the album. "This is _me_." She turned the photograph over, where someone had written 'Joshua with Giulia, Milo's 13th birthday'.

"Who's Milo?"

"I have no idea," Giulia said. "But Joshua – he's my uncle."

"I didn't know you had any other family."

"He disappeared years before I was born," Giulia said quietly. "My father had him legally pronounced dead after it became clear he wasn't going to find him."

"It appears _you_ did," Elijah said thoughtfully. Giulia passed him a yellowed newspaper. The date on it read _Saturday, July 31_ _st_ _, 1954_.

"How can I have found him, when I've never met him; when even _he_ wasn't born in 1954?" Giulia asked.

"The thirty-first of July… Does that have any significance to you?"

"Other than being Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling's shared birthday… On the thirty-first of July, 1954, my grandparents got married," Giulia said. "This was the evening paper – my grandpa and my grandmother, Doll, have their wedding-picture in here."

"How curious," Elijah said.

"I think we'll just have to face facts," Giulia sighed heavily, setting the photograph and newspaper down. "I'm a Time Lord." Elijah laughed, smiling and shaking his head.

"You're certainly mad enough to be one," he agreed, kissing the back of her neck. "Only one heart, though; though, I suppose it's big enough. Does this make me your companion?"

"If you like," Giulia smiled, exhausted. She sighed, the amusement fading from her tired face as she looked over the grimoire. "It doesn't make any sense."

"I wouldn't let it drive you mad," Elijah advised. "The greatest mysteries in the world are merely stories that have been half-forgotten… One day, you shall have to ask Gyda about the Princes in the Tower." Giulia turned to him, her lips parted in a curious, delighted 'O'. He pressed a kiss to her cheek, smiling. "Perhaps this story hasn't been written yet."

"And how do you explain _that_?" Giulia laughed.

"I can't. My mother used to say _time_ is fluid," Elijah shrugged. "And your life is steeped in magic and the supernatural. I wouldn't take anything for granted."

"What did your mother mean, time is _fluid_?"

"I was never a witch; there are things I could never fully understand; but what I've learned over the years is that…there are many _layers_ to this world. The natural world around us; the hidden supernatural, things like magic, werewolves; then there are things even witches cannot explain, things our modern world has forgotten. And witches are limited by their own creativity. There's no knowing what they've done to our world, what's happening under the surface, concealed from our eyes."

"It does make you wonder," Giulia sighed. She frowned at the photograph of herself with Joshua Salvatore. "Oh, speaking of witches, can you get yours to stop creeping around Bonnie?"

"I'll do my best; I make few promises where teenage hormones are concerned," Elijah said, and Giulia smirked. "Where did you go for your run?"

"The Gilbert house," Giulia said, and Elijah raised his eyebrows. "Your Dr Martin isn't the only one who can sneak in there."

"You snuck in?"

"Jenna stayed at Ric's last night; she can't stand John Gilbert," Giulia said. "Jeremy's a deep sleeper."

"Why did you sneak into the house?" Elijah asked, stifling the urge to roll his eyes. "You're welcome into that house anytime."

"I was curious," Giulia said. Firenze mewled softly and slunk off Giulia's shoulders.

"Well…did you find anything interesting?" Elijah asked, and Giulia pulled her phone toward her, swiping into it and accessing her photographs. Gyda would _adore_ the instant nature of digital photography; she _loved_ taking pictures. Giulia held up her phone to Elijah, whose heart missed a beat.

"A silver dagger."

"Willem never had one made for him; you and Kol are still alive," Giulia said thoughtfully. "Klaus has three he can readily use, including his own. And he's the only one who ever kept control over them. If your brother was trying to keep under the radar, giving John Gilbert that dagger is about as subtle as Hiroshima."

"So Niklaus got to John Gilbert."

"Better him than Elena's birth-mother," Giulia said.

"The vampire, and an occult research expert," Elijah remembered, and Giulia nodded. "Still, it's worrying he got to John Gilbert without anyone knowing. There's no knowing what he's told my brother."

"You have to wonder? _Everything_ ," Giulia scoffed. "And that is why I tucked Isobel safe in the tomb, desiccating." Elijah raised an eyebrow; that was news to him. But once again Giulia had displayed her incredible foresight. "I'd rather have a compelled human than a vampire."

"How do you imagine we shall resolve this?" Elijah asked.

"We can't kill him…I suppose," Giulia sighed. "For the first time in his life, John is actually valuable."

"Most likely he is heavily under the influence of Niklaus' compulsion," Elijah said. "It is safe to assume whatever John knew, now Klaus does. He will be receiving regular reports."

"Luckily everyone hates him; no-one would tell him if his hair was on fire," Giulia said, yawning. "So I've invited him to dinner."

"Klaus will _insist_ he attends," Elijah smiled, giving Giulia a kiss. "Who else have you told?"

"Only Sheila knows," Giulia said.

"Did you take the dagger?"

"Too obvious," Giulia clucked her tongue, giving him a look. "I think it wise to let Klaus believe it's all going the way he's predicted, until the very last moment."

"I agree," Elijah said softly. They had both known the potential was there for Niklaus to discover the rumours, to be drawn to the town by the promise of the doppelgänger's appearance, his chance to remove the 'curse' Esther had placed on him a thousand years ago. They knew their situation was precarious at best, that at any moment Klaus might make his move. His first: to try and remove Elijah from the situation. It was Giulia's guess that Klaus meant for Damon or Stefan, the two most desperate to try and protect Elena, to use the dagger against Elijah; they would either succeed, or be killed in the attempt, getting rid of at least one obstacle in Klaus' way to Elena. She had picked over Stefan's diary from 1922, guessing Klaus would prefer it be Damon rather than Stefan who died. Stefan was too consciously conscientious to hurt even Elena's dick of a biological father – Damon wasn't bothered by it. Neither was Giulia; he had tried to barbecue Damon, and was the cause of Caroline being put in the hospital, leading to her death and ultimately her transition. All because of Elena.

"So your dinner-party should have some surprises," Elijah said, pressing a kiss to the back of her neck. "I can't wait for _dessert_." Giulia glanced over her shoulder, her smile warm. He smiled back, leaning in to nuzzle her nose with his, stealing a kiss. "Perhaps you could take a nap while I cook breakfast."

"I'm too wired to sleep," Giulia said softly, her eyes glowing.

"I have something for that," Elijah said, and Giulia's eyes brightened before she let out a laugh, hoisted over his shoulder effortlessly. He clapped a hand possessively over a bare butt-cheek and enjoyed the idea of the view of Giulia in her little black Brazilian panties, slung over his shoulder. He dumped her on the bed, and her laugh was soft and rich, reaching for him; she cupped his jaw and pressed a soft, searing kiss to his lips, as he hooked his thumbs under the sides of her panties, swiftly tugging them off, down her legs, nudging her knees apart with his as he leaned over her, savouring her kiss, pushing her t-shirt up and cupping her bare breast, her piercing a sting of chilled metal against his palm, unexpected and enticing. He shivered, and pressed kisses down her throat, across her collarbones, lavishing attention to the breasts he adored and the constellation of tiny beauty-spots across them, tugging at her piercing with his teeth as his hand sought lower, teasing, the slow, torturous way that wound her up so tight, her release was always violent, every muscle in her body relaxing, boneless, thoughtless. Hand between her thighs, he lavished kisses and little nips on her breasts, kissing a trail down, replacing his hand to wind her up so dangerously tight – and bring her to several violent, relentless orgasms that made her thighs shake and her toes curl.

He sat back, panting, relieved, as Giulia's eyes drifted closed, her breathing gentled, and she licked her lips, curling onto her side, rumpled and asleep. He covered her with a blanket, wiped his mouth and made his way downstairs. She wouldn't be out for long, but it should be enough to stop her walking around like a zombie; he was concerned about her getting behind the wheel of a car, or coming across the wrong person on the street. They both knew Hayley Marshall, the young slut werewolf, had stayed in town; if Giulia saw her in person on the street, without warning… He was concerned. With what he believed to be PTSD, Elijah knew anything could trigger a psychotic break in Giulia. And with her personality, and what she had to cope with and what she had _done_ … He was just worried about her. He put a bread-and-butter pudding in the oven for breakfast, and climbed into bed with Giulia, wrapping himself around her, drawing the blanket over them. Whenever she stirred, his hand sought between her thighs, gentling her back to sleep, making her boneless.

He'd thought about crushing sleeping-pills into her food; this was better. Even in sleep she responded to him so exquisitely.

And he knew when she had woken; she preened like a cat, gasping softly as he massaged her, moaning softly and biting her lip, her toes curling. Her silver eyes glinted in the sunrise splashing across the bed, her hair a tumble of dark waves around her head, and her chest rose harshly on a gasp, eyelashes fluttering as she dug her heels in, groaning as she rolled her hips to his hand.

"Did you sleep well, my petal?" he asked casually.

" _Not—fair_ ," she grunted, squeezing her eyes shut, seizing his wrist in her hands, gasping as her knees fell wide, rolling her hips.

"Well," he sighed, pressing a kiss to her shoulder and shrugging as if doing nothing more scandalous than bringing her a cup of coffee, while he worked his fingers the way he knew drove her mad, "it was this or drugs."

" _This_!" Giulia gasped, writhing. He chuckled evilly, leaning in to nibble and tug on her earlobe, liking the bite of her delicate piercings as he thrust his fingers deep, circling the tiny swollen little bud of nerves. She panted, and came on a throaty cry, throwing her head back. He laughed breathlessly, nipping her throat the way that made her shiver, and he groaned when she shoved her hand inside his pyjama-bottoms, bare beneath them. Eyes bright and wicked, Giulia cupped him, giving a taunting tug that would have made his knees buckle if he stood, and shoved him to his back, climbing into his lap and crying out as she took him in one sharp thrust of her hips, making him grip her thighs, hard, hissing, as the aftershocks from her last orgasm squeezed him deliciously. Naked and writhing above him, he panted, reaching up to cup her breasts, to gently tease her clit, she leaned back, hands on his thighs, grinding her hips against his, the ends of her hair tickling his skin, her warmth searing him; he sat up, gripped her hips, and let her drape her arms over his shoulders, letting him take control, to thrust up to meet her as she rolled her hips, biting her piercing and suckling her, her pants and the quiver of her muscles and the sounds of their meeting a sonata in his ears as the scent of her hair enveloped him, her taste still on his tongue, and he kissed her throat and nipped at her jaw, thrusting up with as much strength as she could take, languidly rolling her hips in time, her arms trembling on his shoulders, leaning down to press delicate kisses against his lips. She buried her head in his shoulder, coming violently on a gasp silenced as she bit into his shoulder, her muscles clenching and quivering around him; he groaned, clasping a fistful of hair in his fingers, and pressed a punishing kiss to her lips as he came so violently he couldn't see straight.

It was the first time he'd had her since finding her in the library. They had been struggling: Giulia flinched at any movement toward her, and Elijah couldn't bear to touch her, set her off, make her associate _him_ with what had happened to her. Giulia panted, bracing herself against him on her forearms, looking dazed but more relaxed than she had in days; he clasped her waist loosely in his hands, leaning back and relaxing into the mattress. She caught his eye, still panting softly, and she gazed back at him, emotion softening her features. She leaned down, draping her upper-body over his, letting him clasp her loosely to him by her waist, trailing a hand up and down her back soothingly. She leaned up, and Elijah glanced at her; she leaned down and pressed a lingering kiss against his lips. He tightened his arm around her shoulders, her hair silky and fragrant against his arm, and took her hand, threading his fingers through hers, pressing a kiss to the back of her hand. Still semi-hard inside her, he drifted off with her.

He woke to her being wicked, feasting on _breakfast_. Grinning lazily, he sighed and bent a knee, giving her better access, choking on a breath as she taunted and teased and nipped, suckling with her tongue, taking him deep and moaning so he felt it, giving him stinging kisses with her teeth that drove him mad, blinded by ecstasy. He groaned, and he heard her chuckle softly – he cried out, feeling it; she took him deep, pumping him, and cleaned him up with her tongue. He felt her weight shift, felt her searing warmth against his side, felt the tickle of her hair, and sighed as he forced his eyes open.

"I couldn't resist," Giulia whispered, gazing down at him. He smiled lazily. "I helped myself."

"Well, I suppose…if you _must_ ," he yawned, stretching luxuriously. He looped his arms around her, and she stretched herself over him, propping herself up on her hand, gazing down at him. He reached up and stroked her cheek. "You look better."

"I feel better," she said softly. Her eyes were gentle, glittering when she bent her head and gave him a lingering kiss. "You gave me sweet dreams."

"I'm glad," he said softly, hugging her to him gently. He became aware of something hot dripping on his chest, and was heartbroken to see Giulia silently crying. She sniffled, wiping her eyes, and let out a hollow, shaky breath.

"I'm struggling," she finally admitted. He hugged her tighter.

"I know," he said, voice constricted. He knew, and he couldn't do anything for her except what he was doing; just being there. He hated being so helpless, it was the one emotion he absolutely could not handle, he had never been able to; he could not stand by while the people he loved suffered. Giulia propped herself up on her hand, gazing down at him, her expression gentle and searing with emotion, she frowned down at him as if confused, but her smile was tremulous, her eyes bright.

"I _love you_."

Elijah let out a shaky breath, his eyes burning. " _I love you_."

He took her in his arms, turning her to her back, and leaned over her, kissing her slowly, savouring, something ripped away between them, leaving nothing but raw emotion, an overwhelming truth shared between them; they didn't look away as he slowly fed himself into her, he took the tiny moan from her lips with a kiss, and savoured every glide of his hips as if it were the first, never breaking eye-contact, their delicate, raw kisses and that truth heightening everything until they shook and writhed in each other's arms, and her fingernails bit into his back as she gasped and writhed under him; he leaned down, stealing a kiss as he pumped into her, gently bringing her down, only to reposition his hips, moving her hand to where they met to tease herself, he pinched her nipple as he reached up to use his arms for leverage, and she whimpered, bit his shoulder, and held on, laughing breathlessly, her face a wash of ecstasy as he surged into her again, giving her searing, biting kisses, powerful, long thrusts that took her breath away and made his toes curl, heat and teasing sensation tightening behind his testicles, surging into her in a blinding thrust as she clenched and rippled around him, fondling him, teasing herself, biting his nipples, writhing beneath him. His arms shaking, he hung his head against her shoulder, and she dusted his face with tiny kisses, massaging his lower-back, his sides; she pressed frantic, shaky kisses against his neck, and he turned his head, capturing her lips.

He shook as he rolled onto his side, drawing her with him; she smiled, sleepy and sweet, and rubbed her cheek against his in a catlike display of affection; what more was there to say?

To know it was one thing; to hear it from her lips was another.

He had her love. And she would have his for the rest of eternity.

* * *

 **A.N.** : I know, right? Next, the dinner-party. Trying to figure out exactly how to introduce Caroline to Giulijah.


	37. A Private Affair

**A.N.** : A teaser, to whet your appetites!

* * *

 **Dangerous Beauty**

 _37_

 _A Private Affair_

* * *

He sighed, and picked up the telephone, smiling to himself when he recognised the number.

"Twice in five years," he hummed playfully. "Are you getting _fond_ of me?"

" _You'll never guess who called me_ ," a familiar voice said, and he sat back against his desk-chair, instantly focused, breathless. He gazed past the cheque-books and sleek MacBook Pro to the calendar on his leather-topped desk, his heart stopping. _May_ , _2010_. He gasped softly, his body shuddering as he remembered to breathe, his heart to kick-start with excitement. His hands shook, excitement firing through him.

"It was never her!" he whispered breathlessly.

" _Would I tease you about this_ ," his father said. He sat back in his chair, emotion flooding through him; his hands shook, his eyes burned. A thousand years. " _Anything else, yes…_ "

"How did she sound?" he gasped softly, his voice breaking.

His father paused, and he waited for his answer, clutching the phone to his ear. " _Young._ "

"Have you met her yet?" he asked, excited.

" _No. And don't you dare do what I know you're thinking of doing!_ "

"But – a _thousand years_ , Father!" he gasped, fidgeting. He had spent a thousand years having _adventures_ , seeking knowledge and misbehaving with exquisite women. His heart thudded against his ribcage, too big; his blood bubbled with excitement so tangible he could taste it. "I – I just…I just want to _see_ her."

" _You know you can't make contact_ ," his father said gently. " _She won't know who you are_."

"I just…I just need to see her. You know what will be going on now," he said.

" _I do – that's why I'm warning you to stay away_ ," his father said.

"I just…I want to see her again." He had his own secret, even from his twin-sister, with whom he had shared everything for a thousand years. Seventeen years ago he had hidden in the woods, watching over a walled-garden while a young-woman cooed over her dark-haired baby, crawling over a blanket and gurgling delightedly, beaming at her mother. He had been overcome with emotion, relieved and delighted; she was _here_. A thousand years, on that day, had seemed like no time at all.

He wanted to see her as a teenager. The ritual to reverse his grandmother's spell was going to occur soon; he wanted to be there to watch. To witness her rise from the ashes.

" _Sasha, I'm asking you_ ," Willem sighed. " _Please_ _don't do anything stupid… You put all of us in danger should Niklaus discover you_ … _You're not listening to me at all, are you_?"

"I'm sorry, I'm booking a flight," Sasha said, eyes on his laptop-screen, smiling to himself; he heard his father chuckle softly at the other end, sighing. He had always claimed Sasha was a handful; when he set his mind to something, he did it.

All he wanted was to see her. But once would never be enough.

He couldn't resist staying away, not when she was so close. When everything was starting to happen. And when she finally learned it all…she would _love_ it! _The game_ , she'd whisper, smiling, her eyes glowing down at him as she showed him a hand-carved chess-piece, tucked safe in her lap. He could still feel the softness of her velvet gown, the lavender scent of her hair, cuddling him and Gisela, teaching them the game.

The queen was her favourite piece.

She could move anywhere.

He glanced across the room at the chess-board set under the window, a game in play, always, Gisela's last move frustrating him.

Once, she had said, " _The whole world is in chess. Any move can be the death of you. Do anything except remain where you started and you can't be sure of your end_."

She had never lost a game.

* * *

Her delight was something Elijah would strive for throughout eternity; when she was _happy_ , it enveloped everyone else. She hid her unhappiness as best she could; but her _joy_ was infectious. And it came from thoroughly confusing everyone. Rosemary and Caroline Forbes were the first to fall victim to the confusion created when they witnessed Elijah in the kitchen with Giulia, shirt-sleeves pushed up, up to his elbows in soap-suds, pushing open a window as Giulia wiped sweat from her brow, half-dressed in the sticky heat as she stirred heavy sauces, shelled boiled quails eggs, and despaired over the fate of her jellies and blancmanges in the rolling heat-wave, the sky a clear forget-me-not without a wisp of clouds, the open windows tempting a non-existent breeze. She was considering having them all dine in the chilly basement.

And she made him whistle while he worked, so she knew he wasn't sampling the fresh berries or candied pineapple rings.

Giulia had asked Elijah whether he felt comfortable to be around Rosemary; and she had asked Rose the same about him. He had killed her family; there was no making up for it. And the worst part was, it was expected of him; Rosemary and Trevor had been running from him for half a millennium, knowing that if he ever caught up with them, that would be their fate. They all came from a very different world; and Trevor had betrayed his trust.

There was little Elijah could do to change a reputation he had nurtured for a millennium. In this modern, gentler world, what was expected of him no longer fit. And he did not want to continue as the man everyone feared. But old wounds had festered, ancient vengeance had been meted, and, in his mind, the irritating situation with pretty Katerina was closed. He had killed Trevor, and was punishing Katerina; Giulia had ensured she would continue to be held captive to _her_ will after he was gone, justice after five-hundred years of abhorrent, self-absorbed behaviour. Helping her become a better person without her realising it.

Elijah could not make up for killing her family; but he could offer her something to help her enjoy her next half-millennium in a different way to having her friend around. He had tasted Rose's fear the moment she had seen him cross the threshold into the Boarding House with Giulia, laden with flowers he had taken Giulia to pick out from the flower-market at dawn this morning.

"Rosemary," Elijah said politely, acknowledging her with a nod. "Good morning."

"Er…morning," Rose said, blinking, as Giulia eyed the threshold of the house, the foyer, with trepidation. He glanced back at Giulia, not wanting to push; she seemed to steel her nerves and stepped through the doorway, a reusable grocery-bag full of fruit, florists' wire, edible flowers, herbs and plain white taper candles in her arms. "Giulia?"

"Oh, hi, Rose," Giulia glanced up distractedly. "How's things?"

"Pretty good," Rose smiled gently. She eyed the flowers in Elijah's arms, wrapped in brown paper. "I heard today's the day."

"It is," Giulia nodded, glancing distractedly around.

"Well, I'm free for the day, if you need any help," Rose said, glancing uneasily at Elijah. Giulia glanced from her to Elijah, giving him a pointed look.

"These need to go in some water," he said, and Giulia stepped in his way.

" _I'll_ do that," she said, with a bite. "You stay here. I know you're nervous. Just give it to her." Rose looked a little startled, and Elijah winced to himself as Giulia struggled down the corridor laden with more flowers and greenery and fruit than she could carry. Rosemary looked like a skittish rabbit ready to bolt – the hot sunshine prevented her from doing just that.

"So, you have settled here," Elijah said softly. "An interesting decision, to remain embroiled at the heart of Original business. One would have hoped you had learned."

"The Salvatores seemed like they needed some help," Rose said. "It was generous of Giulia to invite me to stay here."

"Mm," Elijah murmured noncommittally. He knew she hated this house as much as she loved it; and because of family obligation she could never get rid of it. But she had acknowledged that Damon was better-behaved for Rose living with them. They were similar in ways, but Rose wouldn't tolerate his behaviour. "And you plan to stay here? Of all the places in the world…"

"I've _been_ to all the places in the world; I have no ties anywhere," Rose said gently. "Might as well choose a pretty place with people I like… And Giulia has ideas for doing something with this place that might prove interesting."

"I've heard," Elijah said; Giulia wanted a complete renovation of the old house, to turn it into something of use, something she could be proud of – something she could make an income from. He sighed, uncomfortable. "If you're going to stay, perhaps this can help you remain under the radar." He handed her a small box from his pocket, leaving her to open it alone.

He saw her basking in full sun on the veranda, face tilted to the sun, her spiky hair glowing like a halo, just sitting quietly, tears glittering on her pale cheeks. Later, he spotted her wandering through Giulia's beautifully-maintained walled gardens, smelling the open flowers she hadn't seen in bloom except in cut arrangements for centuries.

It was a private moment for Rosemary, and they left her to it.

It was…a lovely day. With the music playing – Giulia was at heart a vibrant acolyte of 1960s music, a decade completely unique in history – and the smells of the kitchen, their banter as they navigated each other to reach for whisks and basters and pastry-brushes, stealing kisses as they worked; he made her laugh, teasing her, pinching her bum as she stood at the stove, she flicked soap-bubbles at him from the sink, teasing and flirting enjoying their time together, cooking, dancing – it felt like any normal day at home with her. They just had the added amusement of Rosemary's confusion, watching them dancing a jive in the kitchen, bemused at their casual intimacy, the natural way they worked together. It was obvious they knew each other, had known each other far longer than anyone realised.

It was a strange phenomenon, to be able to enjoy Giulia in front of the people in her life. Until now she had been strictly against the idea of 'coming out', of telling even _Caroline_ ; she didn't want anyone else's opinion ruining how she felt about their relationship. He was the same way; and it made him uneasy that Giulia was happy for people to know, now that his brother was in town. She had hand-painted a target on her own back, practically standing out in an open meadow ' _Yoohooing_!' at Klaus: Elijah imagined that was exactly what she was doing. Drawing Klaus' attention from everyone else, for no-one was of more value to him to use to punish Elijah with than her. There was no way Giulia _wouldn't_ use that to her advantage.

It was a shame, though, that she no longer truly cared enough about her friends' opinions to mind revealing her relationship to them. She could brush off whatever they said about her, confident enough in herself and in _him_ , and reassured that, yes, they were together now; but they wouldn't always be. There was a safety in their uncertainty; whatever others could say, Giulia had already thought of and triumphed over it. And they could focus on enjoying each other, rather than worrying.

Giulia quoted Hagrid: " _What's comin' will come, an' we'll meet it when it does_."

* * *

"Hey, hey, hey, I saw that, mister!" Giulia cried, and Elijah froze, grimacing guiltily. The airy Genoise sponge in his mouth seemed to turn to ash.

"You said if I helped you make the _petit fours_ , I could sample whatever I liked!"

"No, I said if you helped make the _petit fours_ , you could sample _me_ ," Giulia said, and Elijah eyed her, grinning with anticipation. He bit his lip, eyeing her up and down, licking fondant-icing off his thumb and drew her closer, taking a kiss, Rose raising her eyebrows and smirking in amusement behind them.

"Hi! I'm here! I'm ready to work!" a voice cried, and the bubbly Caroline Forbes bounded into the kitchen, blue eyes popping as Giulia leaned away from him, glancing over her shoulder.

"Hi, Caroline," she smiled. "Is it three o'clock already?"

"Yeah," Caroline said softly, staring at Elijah. "Um… I had the afternoon free, I thought…you wanted help."

"I do," Giulia scowled playfully at Elijah. "Keep this one from eating all the petit-fours."

"I am merely monitoring the quality of the cooking," Elijah said fairly. He smiled at Caroline, hyper-aware that he still had an arm around Giulia's waist as he extended a hand to her pretty blonde friend. "It's a pleasure to finally meet you, Caroline."

"Uh… Yeah, it's…nice to meet you, too," Caroline said quietly, glancing from him to Giulia. "Although, technically we met the night Tyler turned… Thank you, for that. We all really appreciate that you stayed with Tyler when we couldn't." Elijah nodded.

"You're quite welcome," he said, as Giulia, face sombre, leaned in to press a lingering kiss to his cheek, thanking him in her own way. Caroline watched them, not saying a word, trying to work it out. She gave them a brisk smile, though even Elijah could tell she was confused off-kilter.

"So…what do you need me to do?" Caroline asked, smiling brightly.

"Now that you're here, you can take over dessert duty," Giulia said, and Elijah's lips parted with disappointment.

"You're demoting me!"

"You've been a bad boy," Giulia said, clicking her tongue. "And you know wine; please could you go downstairs and pick out some bottles and decant them? You're the only one who knows the menu as well as I do."

"Very well," Elijah sighed, smiling.

"And a bottle of champagne!" Giulia added. "For dessert." She smiled, popped a tiny square of lemon-iced Genoise in his mouth, smacked his ass and sent him on his way. He chuckled, strolling off to the basement stairs.

Giulia watched him go, distracted as she sucked the lemon icing off her thumb, sighing over the cut of his pants, and how fresh he looked; she was melting. Hair piled up, no makeup on because it would just melt off in the heat and the steam, sweating through her clothes, the ovens humming each burner on the stove on, the sink steaming with fresh soapy water, the windows thrown open to catch a breeze; she was going to revisit the air-conditioning when she planned the renovation. Stefan, Rose and Elena didn't need it; but _she_ did.

"So…what am I doing?" Caroline asked, whipping out a little notepad. "I can make a list. Tell me everything you need doing and we'll figure out what you've missed. Have you written out place-cards? And are you _sure_ of your guest-list? John Gilbert seems an odd choice but I'm not gonna question it. And do you have canapés and drinks to serve the guests while they all start to arrive?"

"Whoa," Giulia laughed softly, holding her hands up in surrender. "Colonel Caroline, it's okay, take a breath. Have you had a snack since lunch?"

"I haven't, I'm a little jittery," Caroline admitted; that wasn't all it was, though, Giulia knew. She knew Caroline too well – the excessive enthusiasm, the list-making. She could tell Caroline desperately wanted to say something, but didn't know what to ask.

So while Car churned over her confusion, Giulia set her to work: Caroline always enjoyed the fiddly kind of work that went into perfecting delicate, imperfect petit-fours. Caroline was such a perfectionist she was ideal to have as her lieutenant; Giulia knew she could be counted on to spot things she had missed because she had so much to organise.

"So, all of the dishes are going to be set on the table at the same time, all of the desserts along the centre," Giulia said, showing Caroline the dining-room. It was what Giulia called the 'China Room', and the prettiest room in the Boarding House. It was a large, airy room devoted to Chinoiserie-inspired Art Nouveau-style, duck-egg blues, greens, cream, red and gilt, a stunning marble fireplace, polished rosewood furniture, a beautiful carpet, and an exquisite original French baroque desk, gilt, inlaid, with candlestick-holders and a built-in clock. Elijah said he hadn't seen craftsmanship like it in centuries, almost weak at the knees when he had first glimpsed it, just like the priceless chandelier. The polished rosewood table was laden with Giulia's finest nineteenth-century crystal glasses, one set blue, the others clear, very delicately etched; she had her best silver-gilt cutlery and a full service of exquisite Staffordshire Minton crockery with elaborately-garlanded turquoise and yellow gilt trim, openwork on some of the pieces, and a set of extraordinary hand-painted ceramic and crystal dessert-stands made to look like her ancestors' favourite flowers. It was Giulia's opportunity to enjoy her inherited antiques, in a way few did unless they were hosting an incredibly elaborate wedding with no thought to broken china and stolen silverware. The very last Contessa di Salvatore had brought an exquisite _surtout de table_ as part of her dowry to her marriage, made of etched crystal, silver-gilt and silvered-mirrored glass with sinuous figures of the Greek gods, flowers symbolic to the original commissioner and delicate renderings of the Salvatore crest and Florentine _fiordaliso_. Elijah had told her a complete set like hers belonged in a museum; it dated back to the eighteenth-century.

Giulia doubted any of the crockery, delicate glassware or the silver-set had been used in the last century. And it was a shame – it was exquisitely beautiful.

 _"Rose–!"_ Caroline blurted in alarm, watching Rose set a large silver magnolia vase – a wedding-gift to Damon's wife Alice Salvatore in 1862 – on the server, overflowing with a natural arrangement of hollyhocks, peachy-pink snapdragons, fuchsia China asters, magnolias and honeysuckle, herbs and greenery, sweet-peas and roses. The sun beamed down on Rose from one of the high windows without shutters. "You're – _not_ burning!"

The older woman glanced over her shoulder, smiling gently and dusting off her hands. She looked pretty – she always looked pretty! – in an olive-green top and dark jeans, but her face showed evidence that she had been crying. After losing Trevor, her world had been turned upside-down; now it had again, with Elijah's simple, life-altering gift.

"I, uh… Elijah gave me a daylight-ring," Rose said uncertainly, still smiling, as she gazed past an excited Caroline to Giulia, a question in her eyes, smiling.

"Wait, _Elijah_ did?" Caroline blurted, confused, and Rose nodded, showing Caroline the understated band on her finger. Caroline blinked, glanced subtly at Giulia, and gave Rose a hug of congratulations. Rose had been a slave to shadows for half a millennium; and old habits would break hard. "Oh. So… So, you're helping too?"

"Why not?" Rose smiled. "There's still quite a bit to do. Giulia, you said you wanted the copper moulds arranged with your research on here…" Giulia glanced up from the small centrepiece she was adjusting on the table, overflowing with white sweet-peas, honeysuckle, lily-of-the-valley and white dog-roses.

"Yes, I will – grab that from the car," Giulia said, wiping her hands on her apron and darting, barefoot, out the front-door to Elijah's sleek little _BMW_ , retrieving a cardboard box full of her things from the trunk. The invitation to the original dinner, framed, as well as the fully-restored pastel painting commemorating the dinner and its guests; the letters, diaries and recipes she had used to piece her project together, as well as a bound copy of her dissertation on upper-class cuisine in the Confederate States before and during the Civil War.

Her research was doctorate-level; but she was interested. She had referenced Mystic Falls, Atlanta and New Orleans, displaying the cultural and socio-economic differences in upper-class cuisine dependent on geography and the source of income – agriculture, industry, slavery – and the obvious difficulties of wartime. In 1860 the Lockwood family had treated their dinner-guests to candied pineapple, pomegranates, fresh oysters and a rum punch she and Elijah had sampled last night after some direction from Kol, telling them how to properly prepare it. The flavour had taken Elijah back; crowded ballrooms and crinolines, the antique waltz. He had taught Giulia the steps; she _loved_ dancing with him.

She had also illustrated a table-layout with all of the dishes she had recreated, labelled, so guests would know what they were going to be eating, and it stood propped on a stand beside the vase of flowers. Following her illustrations on how each of the dishes were to be decorated, Caroline and Rose were left in charge of the table and decorations.

Giulia had never in her life seen the China Room used for a dinner-party. Other than the library, it was the only room Giulia wanted to preserve when she renovated the house. She had kept the shutters closed and the air on higher than usual to preserve the blancmanges and jellies, the halved peaches poached in Marsala, cinnamon and vanilla, served cold with cream, and the fickle strawberry Charlotte cake she had had to remake three times because of leakages.

"I just want to make sure nothing _melts_ in the time it takes to put the hot savoury courses on the table when people start arriving," Giulia said.

"I can't believe they managed to keep things cool in _1860_ ," Caroline said. "I mean, I don't feel it but the girls are _dying_ in this heat."

"And you're fresh as a daisy," Giulia grumbled, plucking her t-shirt away from her, aware she was disgusting.

"You've really not skimped on anything," Caroline said approvingly, gazing at the exquisite table-setting, the etched-crystal glasses, the silver-gilt cutlery, Giulia's beautiful dinner service and the _surtout de table_.

"I know; I went full-on Caroline Forbes," Giulia smiled. "I've done some illustrations of what the dishes should look like…if I start turning out the blancmanges and jellies, would you mind decorating the plates? And arranging the petit-fours and chocolates and sugared-pastilles and bonbons on these two towers."

"Oh my _god_ , they're _gorgeous_ ," Caroline sighed, peering closely at the matching _epergne_ towers Giulia had inherited, foot-and-a-half-high climbing vines of gold, tiered leaves for holding dainty treats, and exquisite, dangling honeysuckle blossoms in gold, red-gold and silver that trembled with every vibration.

"They belonged to the last _Contessa di Salvatore_ ," Giulia told her softly, eyeing the extraordinary honeysuckles. "All of the centrepieces were hers, she was ridiculously wealthy."

"She wasn't like an American princess, was she?"

"No, no, this was way before it was fashionable to sell your daughters to European nobility," Giulia told her. "Eighteenth century, pre- _Marie-Antoinette_ , Caroline-Matilda kind of time."

"Wow," Caroline said softly. "So these are like _priceless_ – why the hell are _we_ using them?!"

"Because they were made to be seen, and used, and lusted after," Giulia said, smiling fondly. She had spent her childhood poring over the contents of the library, listening to Stefan's 1960s vinyl collection, building trebuchets in the walled-gardens and watching the sunlight glimmer off the built-in cabinets full of her ancestors' most precious belongings, those too exquisite to hide away.

"Well, just so you know, when you die those honeysuckle tiers are the first thing I'm taking," Caroline said, arms folded over her chest as she observed the partially put-together table spread.

"Really? Not my jewellery?"

"What jewellery?"

"Hm?" Giulia blinked at her innocently. "So, I'm going to leave you in charge. The skewers with the crayfish and truffles and olives are for the savoury pies, here are the drawings and I've set aside more berries and flowers and herbs for decorating the other dishes, feel free to use what's on the server. Elijah…? There you are. If you need more decanters there are some in the butler's pantry."

"Okay. And you're sure you have the guest-list finalised?" Caroline asked.

"Not finalised; I heard rumblings from the Lockwood house," Giulia admitted, glancing at Elijah, who had been there last night when Mason called to tell Giulia that he and Tyler, between them, had decided to tell Carol. It seemed like a lot of people were _coming out_ this week. "I may have extra guests, or Mason and Tyler won't show up and we're all in danger of the Sheriff's supernatural squad storming the house."

"Oh."

"So the entertainment for the evening is already arranged," Giulia said lightly, not letting on about the _real_ fireworks that would go off later this evening.

"Something to look forward to," Caroline blinked. "And I thought tonight would be devoted to eating food I've never even heard of, drinking too much and passing out in one of the spare bedrooms with my mom because we can't _move_ let alone drive home."

"I changed the sheets for you," Giulia said, and Elijah smiled to himself as he set several bottles down on the server.

"Well – I have work to do, and you need to get back to the kitchen," Caroline scolded happily. Giulia pointed her to the plastic tubs of edible flowers, bundles of fresh herbs, delicate ferns, redcurrants, fresh strawberries, cherries and the skewers for the savoury pies, and asked her to make sure the antique salt and pepper cellars were placed around the table with delicate jugs of floral fruit cordials and fresh homemade lemonade for the underage guests. Giulia had already turned out and decorated the less-fickle dishes; the rhubarb tart, the brand-snaps, white meringue kisses, mini lemon-cakes topped with crystallised primroses, the fresh cherries, peaches and pomegranates in the larger crystal basket on the top of the highest centrepiece overflowing with flowers and candles and delicate cakes and fresh berries.

"Did you find enough wine to suit the dinner?" Giulia asked. It wasn't a full silver-service dinner, guests weren't poured a fresh glass of wine with each new course; Giulia hoped decanting a few bottles of the most delicious wines to match some of the dishes would be enough. Had this been a true dinner from the 1860s servants would have removed the used plates, a fresh glass of wine for each course; a different wine for the soup, fish course, the meat, poultry, sherry to go with the salad, champagne for dessert – but it wasn't, and Giulia didn't have _staff_.

"Unless you've invited Spencer Tracey, you needn't worry the dinner will run dry," Elijah assured her, smiling warmly. "I've put several bottles of Dom in the refrigerator."

"Excellent, thank you!" Giulia smiled, as one of her timers went off on her phone, "I'm on the sauce!" darting back to the kitchen to stir and taste a savoury white sauce for the two whole sea-bass she had ready to roast with chopped fennel, yellow cherry-tomatoes on the vine, lemon slices and olives. She seasoned it lightly and turned to the soup, a white soup – white asparagus. She'd had to contact a local farm especially. Very expensive. And possibly one of her favourite soups ever.

Giulia stayed in the kitchen, assembling the decorations for the serving-platters for the main courses, checking the rose syrup had chilled to pour around a plain white blancmange, checking on her main courses in the oven, preparing the new potatoes, fresh peas, green beans and stuffed tomatoes for cooking at the last minute, the spinach to wilt and decorate with boiled eggs, assembling some of the salads, the exotic chicken and rice dish with dried apricots and blanched almonds, and finally cloistering herself with high relief in the chilly larder to unmould the last of the blancmanges – decorating them with the prettiest peach and pink roses, the most perfect pink camellia, white-currants and raspberries and plum slices, borage flowers and violets, and several particularly stunning jellies – one using Alice Salvatore's cameo mould, the other a duo-layered blancmange and elderflower ring jelly with primroses and whole baby strawberries inside. She tried not to look at her watch, her guests weren't expected until 7:30 p.m., but she wanted everything finished and ready before she went to get showered and dressed.

* * *

"Do you need any help?" Elijah asked, glancing across the room after gently setting the stopper in the last decanter, placing it delicately on the table; Giulia had a specific table layout sketched out for them to follow. Rose had disappeared to help Giulia upturn moulds onto serving-stands.

"Um… I think I'm good," Caroline said thoughtfully, using a paper-towel to clean the beautiful plate she had been decorating with delicate ferns, lavender and calendulas. A perfectionist, as Giulia had once told him; Caroline paid attention to every detail. "I don't know – I mean, _you_ were around during the Victorian time, is this okay?"

"This…is _exceptional_ ," Elijah smiled. Giulia had planned it all to the last redcurrant, the last handmade bonbon and era-appropriate chocolate, the little crystal dish of sticky preserved stem-ginger, of course it was exquisite. Everything looked beautiful, a feast for the senses. He smiled at Caroline, whom he knew had forgotten his presence while she was focused on her task but now stood, uncomfortable and confused, probably a little bit hurt, too, but pushing it aside because it was Giulia's evening and she needed her best-friend's help to pull it off. "You truly do have a mind for the details, just as Giulia said." Caroline's fair eyebrows drew together minutely.

"Giulia…talked to you about me?"

"Of course," Elijah said softly, guessing where Caroline's mind was going behind those widened flawless-blue eyes, and wanting to set her at ease. He sighed softly, arranging another decanter on the table; Caroline leaned in to help rearrange some of the herbs and greenery decorating the edge of the mirrored _surtout de table_. "You're her best-friend. She loves you more than she does anyone else in this world… The night she called, telling me you had been murdered by Katerina… I never want to hear her voice sound like that again; I've never heard someone so broken."

"She cried," Caroline murmured, barely moving her lips, glancing at him, her eyes dancing away. "I've never seen Giulia cry before then, not ever."

Elijah smiled sadly. "I'm not surprised. It takes trust to break down the way Giulia has in front of you, the night your friend turned into a werewolf for the first time." Her terror and grief over what the werewolves had done to her – that was a different matter entirely; that had been done to _her_ , not the people she loved.

"She didn't cry, even at her dad's funeral," Caroline said softly, glancing over her shoulder, frowning toward the kitchen, where they could both hear Giulia singing along absently to The Kinks as she clattered around, stirring things, unmoulding jellies, pouring sauces. Caroline glanced back at Elijah, frowning, curiosity, almost accusation in her clear blue eyes. "I'm worried about her."

"So am I," Elijah admitted on a sigh. She was starting to recover – nothing between them was ever anything but intense, soul-consuming, and that included the way they helped each other heal. But she hadn't told anyone beyond those who had witnessed the state of her after the werewolves had been interrupted by him. She hadn't told Caroline – she couldn't put into words how she felt about being tortured; she had willingly endured it because it was best, to ensure the safety of the moonstone, the safety of their _plan_. And Giulia would rather she be tortured than anyone she loved, despite how limited that list was shrinking. Especially because it was futile; she had taken magical precautions to ensure that even an Original could not persuade her to part with the secret. No matter what Niklaus did to her or the people she loved, Giulia alone could decide when – or whether at all – to unveil the moonstone. "She cannot settle; even Firenze doesn't seem to soothe her, neither to hot baths, and she won't sleep."

"I'm sorry – _sleep_?!" Caroline blurted, holding up a finger. For an instant, it was staggering how much pretty Caroline Forbes resembled a lioness. "Just so I can clear up some confusion, you _are_ the Elijah that Damon speared to a door, right? The Elijah who killed Rose's friend and the three vampires who wanted to take Elena to Klaus, the Elijah who wants to use Elena to draw _Klaus_ to town so you can kill him."

"Actually, I only killed one of the vampires who wanted to take Elena," Elijah clarified. "But, yes. I am all those things."

"Okay," Caroline said abruptly, turning back to fuss with the name-cards on the table. He observed that Giulia had written out name-cards for Elena Gilbert and Stefan Salvatore, neither of whom she had invited. _Foresight_ , he sighed softly. Giulia lived and would die for Caroline; it was important to him that…Caroline not _fear_ him.

"Before I was all of those things, I was Giulia's friend," Elijah said quietly. "We met long before Trevor and Rosemary conspired to kidnap your friend." Caroline's clear blue eyes lanced to him, frowning.

"Really?"

"I…know how this looks, we both do," Elijah said softly. He did know it, and it was just one of the reasons why he and Giulia had kept their relationship so utterly private. "Please know that Giulia and I met long before I heard of your friend Elena's existence. Elena has never been my target… Please don't believe I went after Giulia as some…machination against you and your friends; and please don't be upset Giulia didn't tell you about…us. We both had our reasons for wanting our relationship to remain private…unspoiled."

"Giulia doesn't talk about her relationship drama," Caroline sighed softly. "She didn't even tell us she'd lost her virginity until like _weeks_ after – I was so annoyed she had sex before any of us, she so wasn't the type." Elijah had to laugh at that; Giulia was the most sexual person he had ever met. A delicious stroke for his ego, perhaps _he_ had brought that out in her; she brought out his affection, she relaxed him, gentled the uptight _properness_ he had developed over the last couple of centuries, tapped into his repressed sexuality in a way that overwhelmed, even frightened him, shaken by the ferocity of his desire for her, his yearning for her, the desolation he felt every time his mind tortured him with visions of a future without her in it. "Um – but I probably shouldn't have told you about that, and – it's just – this is weird, right?"

"Yes," he agreed, with a sweet smile. He glanced at Caroline. Giulia was an enigmatic person, but she had told him so much about Caroline he felt he knew her already. And if Giulia loved her, he wanted to know her. "So, how are you dealing with everything?"

"What do you mean?"

"Being turned into a vampire," he said. "It has been a very long time since I had to make the adjustment; I cannot say I handled it as well as Giulia tells me you have."

"It's been okay, I guess; I mean, for a while I was so, so terrified of my mom finding out," Caroline said. "And then she did, and…we've just kind of dealt with it, y'know? I mean, I…I did kill someone. But – I'm not like Stefan and Damon, I don't…I guess I don't _flaunt_ being a vampire, it's not…it's not _who_ I am. I just – have to drink blood sometimes, but it's not my whole life. And I really don't like going to frat-parties to feed, it's annoying, they're so _handsy_ – and there's no way I'm eating _bunnies_ – I just stick to blood-bags. I mean, this is the twenty-first century, there's absolutely no reason to behave like Neanderthals."

"Certainly not," Elijah smiled softly to himself. There were some people who suited being a vampire; and some…who took it to its darkest place, excusing what they did with what they _were_. Caroline was the former; her transition had not affected her personality so much as brought it into greater focus, polishing her finest traits, allowing her to shed her insecurities. According to Giulia, Caroline was gentler and braver for her transformation, self-assured. "Well, it is a relief to meet a new vampire not in thrall to the possibilities of her new powers."

"Well, Giulia had me get all that out of my system very early on," Caroline admitted, smiling. "We spent the weekend in New York, letting me figure things out."

"I've heard," Elijah said softly.

"Wait a minute – New York," Caroline blurted, glancing down at her hand. She stared at him with wide blue eyes. "It – _you're_ the guy who gave Giulia all that jewellery for me to pick from, aren't you? You…you made sure I got a daylight ring."

"There's no reason that vampirism should deprive you of having a life," Elijah said softly.

"Yeah," Caroline sighed softly. She glanced at Elijah, looking confused. "Thank you. For the ring, I mean. I really…appreciate it."

"I know," Elijah smiled gently. Caroline's features gentled; she looked like she wanted to ask him something. "What is on your mind?"

"I – she's been _odd_ lately, like – more than usual," Caroline said, wincing as she glanced over her shoulder toward the kitchen. "She looks like _death_ and she's jumpy all the time. And you said being with her isn't anything to do with the sacrifice but I'm wondering if being with _you_ is why she's so…afraid."

"No. I am not the reason she is struggling," Elijah said sadly. It hurt that Caroline would ask that; but why shouldn't she? This was the danger in keeping their relationship secret; he and Giulia would now have to face her friends' accusations and paranoia, their confusion and feelings of betrayal and disdain.

"She looked _happy_ with you, earlier…in the kitchen," Caroline said softly, fiddling with a name-card, rearranging a peachy-pink snapdragon trimming a dainty individual blancmange. "Even doing all this, today is the most relaxed I've seen her in days."

Elijah frowned toward the kitchen, thinking things over quickly. "Caroline…if I tell you something…please ensure it does not get back to Giulia that I told you… I feel you should know, in the event I am no longer around to…to keep an eye on her…"

"What?" Caroline asked softly.

"You know that the other night, Mason Lockwood killed the alpha of the werewolf pack that came to town…"

"The guy who tortured me, yeah, I know," Caroline clenched her jaw, crossing her arms defensively across her chest.

"Damon and Stefan assumed I had killed the other wolves or run them out of town, when Mason returned to their camp and found it empty," Elijah said, glancing at the corridor, keeping an ear out for any approach from Giulia. "This was not the case. While the werewolf was stalking Elena and Stefan at her family's lake-house, Jules and the others were here…"

He told her. Whether it was the right thing to do, whether it was overloading Caroline with too many truths she wasn't prepared to hear, whether Giulia would thank him for it or not, he told her. He needed to make sure _someone_ who loved Giulia as much as he did knew, knew what had happened to her, why she was struggling; he needed to know someone would understand, to be able to look out for her when he was gone. It was a terrible thing she had endured; and he hadn't dared ask whether she wanted him to erase the memory through compulsion, knowing her answer. She refused vampire-blood to heal to remind her of her own vulnerabilities – and oddly, to showcase her _strengths_. Her greatest strength was her intellect; she would never risk _anyone_ toying with that, her greatest weapon. She trusted Elijah with her body, she was in love with him, just as he was with her, and he trusted her implicitly, so brilliant, so courageous and unselfish; he trusted her entirely to do what was necessary to reunite his family. He hadn't told her that yet; that conversation was brewing. But he just…needed to know someone could see how extraordinary Giulia was, truly appreciated her rarity, and would protect her with their life, just as she would theirs; too often recently, that had been taken for granted.

" _They hurt her_ ," Caroline whispered. Her expression was stricken, heartbroken.

"She was in unendurable pain…for a very long time," Elijah told her unapologetically, as Caroline pushed tears from her cheeks.

"Why – why didn't she _tell_ me?" her voice broke.

"She hasn't said a word about it, not even to me," Elijah said softly. "And I found her. She is suffering. Post-traumatic stress is one of the worst kinds of injuries, it is so unpredictable, debilitating. There is no cure, only…management of the side-effects."

"But she's – she's _okay_?"

"Sheila Bennett used magic to heal her; I knew she would never accept vampire-blood, there is too much risk, and she has her own reasons I respect," Elijah said quietly. "I… I am not telling you this so you will shame the others, as they deserve to be shamed, for not protecting her… I am telling you this, so that you know _why_ she is the way she is; when things start to escalate, if she deteriorates and I am not there… You'll look after her?"

Caroline's eyes were wide, forget-me-not blue and shining with tears. "Of _course_ I will… But how can I look after her when I never know anything's wrong? I didn't have a _clue_ about – _you_ … She doesn't…let me in."

"I believed she learned from her father's example how to be self-reliant," Elijah said softly. He wished he could have met Zachary Salvatore; if the woman he had raised his daughter to be was any indication of his own character, he had been quite a man. "That is not a reflection on you, Caroline; she has learned not to burden others with her problems. Giulia is the protector."

"She…she _always_ had to look after me," Caroline said, her voice so small, her features forlorn.

"She loves you," Elijah assured her gently. "It is not a chore." Caroline raised her hands, hiding her features behind her fingers, tips pressed to her hairline to avoid touching her face, ruining her pretty makeup.

"But I'm not – I'm not girly little Caroline anymore!" she blurted in frustration, upset. "I – I should be able to protect _her_ now, too. I'm – I'm _strong_. And I love her. And now I'm afraid for her. You – you've really been together for...before anyone had even heard of the Sun and Moon Curse?"

"We met on the first of November," Elijah said quietly. Caroline's features smoothed out in realisation; the Lost Weekend that Giulia had so often referred to, the friends she had made, the party she had survived, the weekend after Vicki Donovan had been killed in this very house at a Halloween party, Giulia still reeling from the murder of her father in the cellar.

"You've…known each other that long?" Caroline said softly, looking heartbroken. "You know about her dad?"

"Giulia makes me wish I had known Zachary Salvatore," Elijah said honestly. An exceptional father, and a soldier, a Marine, who held the safety of his community, his home, above his own; yes, he wished he had known the steadier brother of the notorious Joshua Salvatore he had only ever known by reputation.

"I miss him," Caroline said softly. "My mom's just…been so upset since he was killed. He was her best-friend. And Giulia will…never recover from it. He was all she had; he loved her more than anything or anyone. Even her mom. He had Giulia longer." It was plainly-spoken, but a girl who didn't even realise how young she still was. The innocence of her observation was heart-breaking. Elijah glanced at Caroline, his heart throbbing: he could say the same of Gyda, of Torvi. He had spent twenty years with Torvi as his partner in all things; but he had loved Gyda for a thousand years. There was nothing that compared to a father's love for his daughter. And nothing that felt as wonderful as a daughter's love for her father. And Elijah knew Zach Salvatore had been a great father; Giulia missed him too much. She would never forget her loss, either. "My concern is what certain people will say to Giulia about…me."

"Because she's sleeping with the enemy?" Caroline blurted, then blushed. Elijah gave her an enigmatic smile. "Look, if Giulia's with you, then… I guess there's more to the story than just what Stefan and Damon have told us. Although don't think I approve of this, whatever it is. I mean, you killed Rose's friend but you haven't hurt anyone else – I mean, except that Slater guy."

"Mm. And Giulia is still annoyed with me about that," Elijah said. He knew perfectly well that Giulia had retrieved Slater's system from the ether of the internet, and was using it. He'd prefer she had access than anyone else. He glanced at Caroline. "An acquaintance of hers from the university." Caroline rolled her eyes.

"You know, it _is_ possible to deal with your problems without _killing_ people!" she huffed. He shrugged.

"That's what Giulia says; you can't bring them back," he sighed, adding, "Usually."

"So…you're…like _together_?" Caroline frowned at him; he gave her another enigmatic look.

"We are what we are," he said softly. There was no easier way to explain it. "We have…so far tried to keep everything as separate as possible, our relationship, and the ritual."

"So, are you working together?" Caroline asked.

"For a little while we enjoyed working _against_ each other," Elijah smiled privately. "Recently, however...my aims have shifted as new information came to light. Giulia has a certain vision of what this sacrifice could mean…there are things she sees that I can't." Giulia proved not only her incredible foresight but her _insight_ as well, anticipating how the sacrifice would affect people's lives and how they would react. "To her own ends Giulia has worked both with and against me, and for and behind the backs of Stefan and Damon; know that whatever she has done without any of your knowledge, she has done so for you. For all of us." Truth be told, he didn't believe Giulia truly even thought about her old friend's part in the sacrifice; she had ensured Elena's safety and was now focused on the forest, not the trees. Elijah didn't have to ask to know Giulia was thinking about _his_ family, _her_ friends, and the benefits and drawbacks of _allowing_ Klaus to live, versus ending his life. He knew her position on his ability to kill his own brother; a thousand years was far too long, too much history. And Elijah was _not_ his brother. Giulia had posed him an interesting hypothesis: that lifting the spell may be everything Niklaus had _not_ anticipated. It may very well be his undoing.

She knew something he didn't, he was sure; she had seen something in his memories that he had not, a thousand years of looking at things the same way. Fresh perspective had given Giulia an advantage over him; she guessed what he had been afraid to think, that Willem was Rollo's firstborn son by Esther, shared his werewolf heritage and had hidden his nature from them.

Elijah could understand why Willem would conceal himself from Niklaus, whose anger over the curse had grown, warped, over the centuries. Niklaus was a petulant, jealous man, he always had been; combined with his narcissism and paranoia, he would perceive Willem as everything he believed he deserved. And he would punish Willem for it.

"Just know, there is more at stake than your friend's life," he said quietly, glancing over at Caroline.

"Oh, I know that," Caroline said. "I know Klaus would have to sacrifice a vampire and a werewolf as well as the doppelgänger."

"It…goes beyond that," Elijah said. "There are things Giulia understands which…I do not wish to share with others. Let us just say they affect how I will approach dealing with Klaus."

"Rose says you're Santa compare to Klaus," Caroline said, and Elijah laughed.

"We all have our qualities," he said softly. "My brother has always been a handful; he works hard to maintain his reputation."

"Your – Klaus is your _brother_?!" Caroline blurted, her mind spinning.

"Mm. So you see, there is more to this than your friends realise," Elijah said.

"And Giulia's helping you," Caroline said; Elijah thought about that.

" _Yes_ ," he said slowly. He believed Giulia was willing to do more to help him than anyone else had ever dared; she knew his darkest memories, she knew what haunted him, how his heart was broken. _Not_ killing Klaus was part of her plan; in doing so, she was manoeuvring to mend Elijah's heart.

"She doesn't think we should try and kill Klaus," Caroline said.

"Do you?"

"Not really," Caroline said, with a sigh. "I mean, If Elena wasn't my friend, I wouldn't want to be involved in any of this." She gave a brisk sigh. "But she is, so here were are; and I'm sure there's more than one way to deal with the situation."

"I think Giulia would prefer that you weren't involved regardless," Elijah said. He smiled at the irony. "She says you keep her human; I honestly dread what she would be capable of should anything truly irrevocable happen to you."

"Well, I'm fine," Caroline declared. "And I'm perfectly capable of looking after myself!" After a lifetime, it would be difficult for Giulia to break the habit. Especially when, contradictory to what Caroline said, Giulia still had to look after them all.

The gorgeous Persian-style carriage-clock on the mantelpiece chimed on the half-hour, and Elijah checked his watch. He left Caroline to fuss, channelling her frustration and confusion through excessive tidying, and found Rose in the kitchen with a melting Giulia.

"It's half-past five," he told Giulia. "What do you need me to do?"

"Unless I've forgotten something very important, it's actually all under control," Giulia said. "I'll check my _list_." She found her notebook, and started counting off everything. Expecting to eat at eight p.m., Giulia had an opening to get showered and ready for the evening before the last things had to be cooked. Everything that could be prepared beforehand had been; what couldn't yet be cooked was ready and waiting.

While Giulia disappeared to her old bedroom, Elijah did what he could to organise the last of the mess Giulia hadn't managed to wash and put away, Rose on the end of a dishtowel, rearranging everything where she had learned things lived during her time at the Boarding House. Caroline flitted around the great room, plumping pillows, dusting lampshades, quickly vacuuming the carpet.

"Caroline, stop fussing," Rose told her, strolling past. "Go and get ready. Your dress is in the blue-room."

"I'm just making sure everything's tidy!"

"The house will be what it'll be; there's no telling Damon won't bring a harem of sorority-girls home for the evening's entertainment," Rose told her. "Go and get dressed." Elijah set the last few candles in place, checked there were enough goblets for the rum-punch, and strolled upstairs seeking Giulia; he had never been upstairs before, and found her old bedroom perfectly suited to her old tastes. He found her in the adjoining bathroom.

"You look _ravishing_ ," he sighed, smiling at her. Towel wrapped around her, moisturising her legs, toothbrush sticking out of her mouth, wet hair stuck down her back.

She leaned over, spitting out her toothpaste. "Well, you're not with me for my looks."

"Well, not entirely," he sighed, giving her towel a pointed look, as he unbuttoned his shirt, stepping out of his unlaced shoes. His change of clothing had been draped on Giulia's old double-bed. She arched a dark eyebrow and smirked, letting the fluffy fabric fall from her as she stood, preening. He groaned, letting his pants fall to the floor, and crept up behind her, encircling her waist in his arms, drawing her warm, fragrant body flush against his. "It's a shame you didn't wait for me before you showered." She gave him a sweet smile in the mirror as he pressed tiny kisses and little nips along her ear, making her shiver and squirm in his arms. He bent his head and pressed a kiss to her shoulder, giving her a little nip, playfully slapped her ass and slipped into the walk-in shower, the same hot-water Giulia had eschewed in favour of cold to cool down soothing him, and he faced the spray, enjoying the hot water sluicing over him.

"Hey, Giulia, do you some prod– Oh. _My_. _God_!" Caroline's voice blurted, and Elijah raised his eyebrows, glancing over his shoulder as a tumble of blonde curls whipped around the open doorway. He heard a cried, " _I'm_ _so sorry_!" and chuckled richly to himself, rinsing lather from his body and posturing for the benefit of Giulia, who was laughing her head off and lusting after him, sudsy and wet.

"It really is a shame I didn't wait for you to shower," she said, and Elijah laughed as he stepped out of the shower, accepting the towel Giulia handed to him, wrapping it swiftly around his waist. "Can you imagine her reaction to _that_?!"

"Behave," he smirked gently, opening his shaving-case. Giulia shook her head, leaning in to give his jaw an affectionate nip.

"Elijah?" she wheedled gently, gazing through her fine long lashes at him.

"What do you want?" he asked, smirking.

"Would you mind blow-drying my hair?" she asked. He smiled, rolled his eyes, and while Giulia applied her makeup and shimmied into fresh little black Brazilian panties and a black lacy bra, he gave himself a close shave with his straight-razor and Victoire's homemade organic lather. He pulled on fresh pants and a tailored charcoal-purple shirt, leaving the top button undone, polishing his shoes, and found Giulia's hairdryer and barrel-brush, fending her off from plastering kisses over his freshly-shaven cheeks. She couldn't resist him first thing in the morning after a hot shave, just as he could barely walk from lust when she'd had a fresh wax.

Blow-drying a lady's hair was a skill he had acquired through necessity; Ashlyn had always had long hair and as a little girl she would only be good for _him_ after bath-time. She had adored spending time with him, and he didn't pull her hair the way impatient Carafina used to, wanting to get the job done as quickly as possible. Neither of them had enjoyed it. But little Ashlyn used to stand between his knees, sat on the edge of her bed, and blow-dry her hair. A story, and she would be fast-asleep, silky golden-blonde hair haloed around her.

Immediately after the werewolves had tortured her, he had had to rescue from a glacial shower after she had sat under the scalding hot-water until the tank ran empty. Catatonic, he had dried her down with a towel, slipped a nightdress over her head, and perched her on the edge of the bed between his knees with a hair-dryer. She had rested her hand on his knee, the only movement she had made without coaxing from him, and trembled. She'd still been trembling after he finished drying her hair, and had had to slip a hand between her thighs to coax her to relax, gently guiding her into bed.

Now, Giulia sat between his knees on the edge of the bed, and the little minx kept trailing her fingers along the insides of his thighs, smirking to herself. She got bold and cupped a handful, sighing, and he resisted the urge to rumple everything by tossing aside the hair-dryer, flinging her to her back and giving her a good seeing-to. He popped the handle of her hairbrush in his mouth, reached around and gave her pierced nipple a nasty pinch to make her behave; she only _squirmed_ against him, and he heaved a long-suffering sigh, finishing the job. Her fragrant hair fell past her shoulders in relaxed, natural waves. She glanced over her shoulder, smiling warmly at him.

"Thank you," she said, twisting around to give him a gentle kiss. Her features softened, saddened, and she swallowed. "Thank you for being here tonight."

He smiled, stroked her chin affectionately, and leaned in for a kiss. "You know…we have a few minutes until you need to be downstairs."

"A few minutes?"

"Didn't you know, I'm a vampire? I'm very fast."

"Prove it."

* * *

 **A.N.** : I know, I know, not much happened this chapter, I'm irritated with it a bit, I thought I'd get the whole dinner scene out of the way in one go. Not to be, but oh, well! If you're curious about the things that inspired the dishes Giulia's made, I've posted a load of pictures on my _Pinterest_ board '2. GS Dangerous Beauty'. The next chapter will be the dinner, I promise!


	38. Just Desserts

**A.N.** : The dinner-party. Some unexpected guests.

* * *

 **Dangerous Beauty**

 _38_

 _Just Desserts_

* * *

She greeted her guests in an elegant little black sheath mini-dress, her hair down and relaxed, wearing divine red _Charlotte Tilbury_ lipstick, and dainty little kitten-heels from _Zara_ with a bow over the toes that she had picked out while shopping with Caroline last time they went to the mall in Grove Hill. She looked elegant and incredibly beautiful, _adult_. They had strolled downstairs hand-in-hand, relaxed and content, to find Damon sampling the punch; he scowled at them in complete and utter confusion, the cogs churning behind those curious silver eyes Giulia had inherited. Caroline looked embarrassed as she slipped downstairs in a pretty purple sundress, Rose behind her in a floaty olive floor-length dress, and Giulia set a long-playing record on, checked her watch and retrieved her camera to take as many photographs as she could before her guests arrived, while Caroline drove off to collect her mother.

The first guests to arrive were Jenna and Ric, escorted by Jeremy, who had dressed up in darker jeans and a smart shirt; Giulia thought she saw Ric's influence there, because she certainly hadn't seen Jeremy wear that shirt before.

"Thank you for coming," she beamed, quelling her nerves. She wasn't worried about the dinner; everything was perfect. She was a little more anxious about what would happen _after_ dinner. She knew from Ric that Damon had been given a silver-dagger with certain mythology about killing Originals attached to it; Giulia knew Damon would be using tonight as an opportunity. She had already found the dagger and given it to Elijah. With Kol still alive, Klaus now only had the two daggers; he wouldn't have a spare once he daggered Elijah. "I'm glad you could make it."

"Of course," Jenna beamed. "We wouldn't miss it, Ric told me the food looks insane."

"It is," Giulia said, surprised and touched as Jenna handed her a bunch of flowers. "But don't worry, you don't have to eat the tongue."

"I'm – _sorry_?!" Jenna blurted, looking alarmed, as Ric chuckled.

"Come on in," Giulia said, and Ric raised a goblet of rum-punch in salute to Ric, who looked like he stifled the urge to roll his eyes. "Just so you know, we do have spare-bedrooms if you both want to drink tonight."

"That's why we brought this handsome young guy," Ric said, clapping a hand on Jeremy's shoulder.

"See, me forcing you to drive the _Beetle_ was good practice," Giulia beamed at Jeremy; they had taken a maiden-voyage in Jenna's Mini when Jeremy had received his full licence only last week. Her sweet little superhero seemed to have grown another six inches and his features were maturing; her little buddy was growing up. He was _driving_!

"Wait, you let _Jeremy_ drive your Beetle and he didn't even have a licence?" Caroline blurted indignantly. Giulia loved her friends but there was no way she trusted them with something as precious as her _Beetle_.

"There were extenuating circumstances," Giulia said, raising her chin.

"She was wasted," Jeremy spoke up, and Giulia narrowed her eyes at him over her shoulder. Elijah strolled into the room, a goblet of punch in his hand, and smiled at the flowers in his arms.

"Pretty," he said softly. "Who are these from?"

"They're from Jenna," she said warmly, giving him a warm smile. He had been holding her together, whether he knew it or not. After what happened to her, she couldn't abide the thought of being _touched_ – only by him. Only what he did to her, what he made her _feel_. She'd felt permanently like something was crawling all over her skin, fidgety and anxious, nauseous and a little dizzy; today was the first time in days she had been so entirely consumed by her work that she hadn't had time to feel anxious and off-kilter. She was so thankful to Elijah for being here, for helping her though everything – she knew she was a handful; she couldn't help it, but she was struggling, and didn't know what to do. She – she wanted her _dad_. But he wasn't here, and to lean on Elijah like that was crossing a line she thought it best she didn't cross. "Elijah, you know Jenna… You've sort of met Alaric Saltzman, and this is Jeremy Gilbert."

"I'm pleased to meet you," Elijah said courteously, shaking Ric's hand and then Jeremy's. He glanced at Giulia, wide-eyed, but smiled uncomfortably as Elijah took the flowers from Giulia. "I shall find a vase for these, excuse me."

"Thank you," Giulia smiled at him, leaning in to give him a kiss on the cheek, and Elijah winked subtly at her as he drifted off, leaving Jeremy confused and Ric frowning disapprovingly over his shoulder.

"So, are we fashionably early?" Jenna asked. "We were all kind of fidgeting to get over here."

"You're the first to arrive," Giulia chuckled. "Where's John?"

"Bringing up the rear," Jenna sighed, shaking her head. She looked very pretty in a dusty rose-pink dress that really brought out the strawberry in her hair, the flush in her cheeks. She looked annoyed, though. "We left him at the house, butting heads with Stefan."

"Let me guess, about the path forward," Giulia rolled her eyes, and Jenna pulled a face.

"I used to think college-applications would be the most difficult thing I'd have to get through with Elena," Jenna sighed. "That and birth-control. Guess neither's very applicable at the moment." Giulia gave her a curious look, and she sighed, shaking her head. "Got another call from one of Elena's teachers. Her GPA is _not_ what she's clever enough to make it."

"Well, it would help if she stopped skipping class to have sex with Stefan _while I'm entertaining guests_ ," Damon said, slinking over and handing Jenna and Ric goblets of rum-punch. "The vanilla of it all put me off my drink."

"They've been – ugh! I don't believe this!" Jenna growled, frustrated. "What's wrong with having sex in the back of the car in the school parking-lot like I used to?"

"Stefan's Porsche isn't exactly Logan's mom's minivan," a syrupy voice teased, and Meredith, in heels and a pretty dress for once, not a white lab-coat or scrubs in sight, stepped over the threshold carrying a bottle of wine and a little box Giulia recognised instantly; the artisan chocolate-shop in Richmond Giulia herself had introduced her to.

"Hey, Meredith," Ric smiled, as she hugged Giulia, exchanging the chocolates and dessert-wine, before turning to give Jenna a grin and a hug. "You hung up the stethoscope, huh?"

"Just for the night, I thought I would," Meredith beamed. "I've been given strict instruction to set aside Dr Fell and just be Meredith for the evening; the calorie-intake and cholesterol levels of everyone around me are likely to give me a stroke."

"That's the spirit!" Giulia scoffed, shaking her head.

"Well, as you're not on call, let me get you a drink," Ric smiled. "Gotta warn you, though, this punch is making even me swoony."

"When have you ever been _swoony_?" Jeremy laughed, as Jenna hastily took her goblet from him, where he'd been sipping it thoughtfully.

"So, do you need me to do anything?" Jenna asked, smiling at her.

"Um, no, thank you; just enjoy," Giulia smiled, gesturing her into the great hall. "If you want, go take a look at the table. It's not finished yet, the hot savoury courses aren't cooked, but it's still something to see."

"I'll bet," Jenna smiled, sipping her rum-punch as she drifted toward the China Room. Caroline returned with her mother, who had just finished work: but it wasn't Sheriff Forbes who stepped over the threshold. It was _Liz_ , in a jewelled little black dress, heels and a delicate shawl.

"Liz," Damon grinned, sauntering over. "I like a woman in uniform but I have to say, you look... _smashing_."

"Thank you, Damon," Liz laughed softly, letting out a breath of relief. She gave him a sweet smile. "I needed that." Giulia turned and raised her eyebrows.

"Whoa!" she let her jaw unhinge, a suitable response to Liz looking ten kinds of foxy. She cooed, grinning, " _Sexy lady!_ " Caroline beamed with pride beside her mother, receiving a hug from Giulia.

"Okay, come on!" Caroline grinned mischievously, and Giulia smiled. "Come and see what Giulia found in the attic."

"Please don't let it be a body," Liz sighed, led by the hand by an excited Caroline into the great-room.

"Anyone would think we had gained a _reputation_ ," Damon smirked at Giulia, who smiled uncomfortably and went to get the door as the bell rang again. The Boarding House hadn't seen so many people _not_ here for a raging high-school party in years. Even her parents hadn't gotten married or had a reception here: they had eloped in Florence and conceived Giulia there. She had been born in this house, in the huge bed in what had ever since been Damon's room. A pang shot through her, and she pasted a smile on her face, grinning at Sheila Bennett. As a courtesy to her, Giulia had extended an invitation to Bonnie; there was more than enough food. And when Stefan showed up, passive-aggressive, wheedling, tugging Elena along after she pouted long enough about being excluded, she'd have someone to bitch with in the corner. Both of them had dressed up a little more prettily than usual, Professor Bennett replaced by the activist lush Sheila.

"Evenin'," Sheila smiled warmly, and Giulia let her feel how _she_ was feeling as she gave Sheila a hug, sighing softly. Sheila rubbed her arm, her expression sympathetic and knowing, and lifted Giulia's chin with a curled finger, winking. "It's gonna be okay, sugar."

"Well, come on in," Giulia said, and accepted the small gift Sheila presented her with. "Thank you! Everyone's in the great-room; help yourself to the punch."

"Oh, I will," Sheila assured her, and Bonnie ducked her head in a sort of polite, awkward acknowledgement, following her grandmother. True to her word, Giulia hadn't spoken to Bonnie since the night they realised Caroline had been turned. _High road_ , Giulia sighed to herself.

She hid her grimace as John Gilbert appeared at the open doorway, sunlight spilling through it.

"Giulia… You look beautiful. These are for you," he said, handing her a truly pretty bunch of eucalyptus and coral peonies just starting to open.

"Oh, um…thank you," Giulia said, not expecting the flowers. John stepped over the threshold and glanced hesitantly into the great-room.

"Thank you for the invitation," John said, glancing at her. "I know I'm not the most-desired dinner-guest in town."

"It is what it is," Giulia said quietly. "You did what you did to protect Elena." She wanted to add that what her father had done, trying to keep Damon trapped long enough to desiccate him, was to protect the entire _town_ : John's actions had put far more people in danger than he had bothered to consider when planning the vampire-massacre to protect one person. She could hear the friendly chatter, even laughter in the other room. "The others are in the great-room. Help yourself to punch."

Sticking to the high-ground proved _very_ difficult when the doorbell rang next. Over the last few days, she had been struggling, but getting better; Elijah helped, and so did the knowledge that all but two of the werewolves who had come to town were now either dead, or on the run, most likely captured by Klaus for use in the spell. Giulia knew the pack slut, Hayley Marshall, had stuck around, and that had made her suspicious. Tyler had mentioned her in a few texts; she had dared approach him. And he had shut her down, completely uninterested. She was only a couple years older than them, apparently. Giulia hadn't seen her since, but if she was still around, she could anticipate how things would work. The only person in town she knew was Mason Lockwood, who had an accommodating sister-in-law still reeling from the premature death of her husband, and her teenage son who also happened to be a werewolf. But she wouldn't do anything even as bold as approach the Lockwood family without some assurance.

When she pulled the door open, smiling, she felt like she had been kicked in the teeth, no matter how prepared she had been for the possibility. Behind Tyler, Hayley Marshall pouted uncomfortably, gazing up through her lashes, chin tucked down. Carol, resplendent in _Chanel_ as always, beamed at Giulia between her two boys, Tyler and Mason. They had both put on smarter shirts, and Tyler shot her an apologetic look, not even realising how much of an imposition it was that they had brought Hayley along, how dangerous. Mason had no clue; she doubted Hayley had told him what they had done to her. That wasn't the way to ingratiate herself with a well-connected family.

"Giulia," Carol beamed, looking…a little glazed.

"Hi Carol," Giulia smiled. "Welcome."

"I'm so sorry we're late," Carol smiled, and Giulia saw her hands shaking a little.

"You're perfectly punctual as always, Carol, you know that," Giulia smiled. Carol had kept her clocks wound ten minutes early since Tyler was a little boy, wanting to get him into bed that much earlier. "Are you alright?"

"I – the boys…told me," Carol said, with an uncomfortable smile, her eyes haunted. Giulia glanced at Mason and Tyler, who gave her an enigmatic shrug, giving her a grim smile. Carol gave her another huge hug, whispering, "Thank you." Giulia knew she meant for being with Tyler the night he had turned, for not letting the werewolf-pack get to him.

When Carol released her, Giulia said simply, "There's rum-punch."

"Thank God!" Carol blurted, gasping, and leaned in to kiss Giulia's cheeks before striding into the foyer in her precarious heels, seeking alcohol. Giulia glanced at Tyler and Mason.

"Hey," Mason grinned lazily, handing her some flowers. "Sorry, I brought an unexpected guest. I hope it's okay. Giulia, this is Hayley Marshall; Hayley, this is Giulia Salvatore."

"We've met," Giulia said briskly, levelling a look at Hayley Marshall in her clinging orangey-red dress and high black heels. Uncomfortable under Giulia's marble-hard gaze, Hayley glanced through her eyelashes at her, hazel eyes flitting away.

* * *

"What have you got there?" Elijah asked, peering over Caroline's shoulder as the adult guests Giulia had invited, whom Caroline and Jenna had been very good about introducing him to while Giulia greeted her guests at the door, laughed over whatever had been collected on the large coffee-table.

"They're photographs and albums Giulia and Tyler and I found in the attic," Caroline giggled softly, smiling at her mother gasping and poring over old photograph albums. "From when our parents were young."

"Ah, memory lane," Elijah smiled fondly. "Home of lost loves and questionable haircuts."

"Totally! Mrs Lockwood – look at your _perm_!" Caroline giggled, as the others laughed. Carol Lockwood had greeted Elijah like an old friend, slipped onto the daybed with a goblet of punch and sipped it, her heart stammering frantically, though she looked perfectly poised. A politician's wife, to her core.

"Caroline," Elijah said softly, and the pretty blonde glanced over her shoulder, smiling. "Would you possibly do me a favour?"

"Of course," Caroline beamed. He brought a small silver digital-camera out of his pocket.

"Would you take photographs during the evening? For Giulia," he asked, and Caroline beamed. She reached into her little clutch-purse and grinned as she pulled out a little purple camera. He chuckled, glad she had thought of the camera too. Giulia had put so much thought and effort into the evening, he wanted someone to document it for her. He glanced over his shoulder, and frowned. Caroline noticed him go utterly still, his focus drawn entirely to Giulia at the door; she followed his gaze and gasped, then seemed to… _growl_. In a blink, she was gone, appearing behind Giulia at the door like a sunny, golden avenging-angel.

She folded her arms tight over her chest, glaring at the girl on the doorstep. Tyler looked awkward, recognising Caroline's Mean Girl face, the take-no-bullshit flash in her eyes. She glared at Hayley in her cheap reddish dress, asking cattily, "Did you leave your _shotgun_ behind?" Colour leached from her face, her eyes flitting quickly from Caroline to Giulia and back. "Yeah. I know what you did." Giulia tilted her head, not quite looking back at Caroline.

"I didn't touch her," Hayley said, raising her chin, her eyes still somewhere around their navels, rather than having the nerve to look them both in the face.

"You were there. You watched," Caroline glared at her, too angry to form eloquent sentences. "Just like you were there having _sex_ in the next tent while your friend tortured _me_."

Giulia blinked, and glanced back at that, her eyebrows raised. "She was?"

"Yeah. I know, classless, right?" Caroline sniffed disdainfully. She glanced from Hayley to Mason, Tyler edging cautiously away. She sighed to Giulia, "I mean, if you're gonna go after a guy, I guess you should make sure his family has money."

"Go on. Try not to pilfer the silverware," Giulia said curtly to Hayley, Mason frozen, uncomfortable, in the foyer. She jerked her head into the great-hall and Hayley tucked her chin down and strode off as fast as she could, chasing after Tyler's disappearing back. Giulia frowned, turning to Mason, taking the measure of him. "Maybe if I cut it off, you'll stop thinking with it."

"What–?" he blurted.

"You know what I'm talking about – _her_ , really?" Giulia said, frowning.

"She's not had it easy," Mason said gently.

"Her life is what she's made it," Giulia said curtly. She narrowed her eyes at the handsome, relaxed guy in front of her. She sighed heavily, shaking her head, wrinkling her nose in disdain, guessing; "You've already fucked her, haven't you? _Mason_!"

"They were our friends," Mason said, in explanation.

"Grief-sex," Caroline tutted, pulling a Caroline-face.

"They were sadists and murderers blaming everyone else for their own problems," Giulia said coolly. "You were _better_ than they were, and you know it. And she'll take advantage of that. Go out with a _nice_ girl, for once – take Caroline out on a date!"

"I'm sorry?!" Caroline blurted, wide-eyed, glancing quickly at Mason.

"Yeah! Take her to the beach for a surf-lesson," Giulia grinned mischievously.

"With the _fish_?"

"Or horseback-riding. She loves getting in the saddle," Giulia snickered, and raised a hand to her head as Caroline clipped her round the ear. "Ow!"

"For real, though, you can do _way_ better than the pack's party-favour," Caroline sniffed, glancing sternly at Mason. "You know they held me in their RV, don't you? She was being screwed by _two guys_ – like, _at the same time_ – while Brody was tormenting me; it was _really_ annoying." Giulia snickered.

"She did what she had to do to survive," Mason said calmly. The girls shared a look that said it all.

"Like get a _job_?" Caroline asked tartly. "I'm sorry, but you guys turn once a _month_ at _night_ ; how does that stop you leading a productive life?" She had a point, and Mason knew it; _she_ had been affected far more by her transition than Tyler had his. If she hadn't had Giulia, she'd have been destined for a life like Rose's, five-hundred years without the feel of the sun kissing her face. Giulia gestured Mason into the great-room, for now glossing over him bringing the enemy to her dinner-party; it was important she be here, anyway, to learn the way of things around here. Caroline frowned into the great-room, where Hayley cautiously accepted a drink from a dangerous-looking Elijah, simmering with anger. Caroline blurted, "There's no way I'd _turn tricks_ to survive, that's so lazy… Okay, I know he's not actually _our_ friend or anything, he's Carol's brother-in-law and Tyler's uncle – I guess he is Jenna's friend – but…you don't bring the girl who helped torture two of the other guests to a dinner-party and expect everyone to be okay with it. I mean… Do you think she's even that good in bed?" She glanced at Giulia, who wrinkled her nose, watching Hayley flirt subtly with Mason as he gulped down punch, laughing at the old photographs Caroline had thought it a good idea to bring out.

"My guess is, she let them do whatever they wanted," Giulia said, and Caroline wrinkled her nose, shuddering.

" _Ew_ ," she declared. "And Mason's _into_ her?"

"His taste in women is questionable at best, the Katherine of it all," Giulia reminded her. "Oh well. A lid for every pot."

"God, why do all the _sluts_ get the good ones?" Caroline sighed.

"Because they let them do whatever they want," Giulia smirked, and Caroline laughed, pulling a face.

"Yeah," she sighed. Giulia glanced at her, her expression guarded and thoughtful.

"He told you."

"Yeah, because you _didn't_ ," Caroline blurted, surprised how angry she sounded. Hurt, half-exasperated, letting off truth-bombs, Caroline tended to keep everything pent up until people just _really_ had to hear it. She glanced over her shoulder; they were alone in the foyer and the other dinner-guests were distracted with vintage photographs. She glanced at Giulia, her expression stern. "You know what that Brody guy did to me – you came for me, knowing you were the weakest one there, you got _hurt_ , _fighting_ for me. You always do… You always put your neck out to help everyone else – it's…it's _okay_ that you're human, you know? It's okay that you're vulnerable, that…you _need_ us to protect _you_ sometimes… And I'm sorry – am _so sorry_ – that we've all forgotten that. We've all taken you for granted – but I promise, I'm _never_ going to do that again."

She pulled Giulia, whose bright eyes were hard and glassy, looking like she was barely holding it together, into a huge hug, trying to put into that tight squeeze everything she was feeling. Giulia was the human, _Caroline_ was the vampire; they just needed to stop acting like it was the other way around. Giulia was clever, and _brave_ , and above all things unselfish; she conquered what was beyond her strength, just because she knew she could.

Giulia whispered something to Caroline she'd _never_ heard Giulia admit: " _I want him back_."

"I know," Caroline said; she'd known it for months. Giulia losing her dad was the worst tragedy of everything they had all had endured. Caroline still had her mom and dad, her life – Giulia had made sure of it, giving her the daylight jewellery, helping her become who she was without losing herself to _what_ she was – Elena had her little-brother, she had Jenna, she had Stefan and Damon fighting over and _for_ her, when they were _Giulia's_ family, and the reason Giulia was now an orphan. They had taken her father from her, Giulia had devolved ever since, darker, scarily intense and mysterious, secretive. She had no idea what her best-friend was up to. Caroline glanced over her Giulia's shoulder at Elijah, thinking that if Giulia had trusted Elijah enough to let her guard down and let him fall in love with her…he had to be alright. Right?

"I know you think there's no-one left to look out for you," Caroline said softly. "I know you're trying to protect me, you always have, since we were little…you were always my superhero… But just because your dad's gone doesn't mean you have to always be the protector, be the grown-up… I can do things now that you can't, and I don't want you to try to do them, because I can't…stand the thought of you being hurt again."

"I love you, Caroline," Giulia said, releasing her, glancing into her eyes. "I'll always try to protect you."

"And I love you, too," Caroline declared tearfully, frustrated. "You have to let me protect you too. It's not fair, you always getting hurt trying to protect everyone else…" Giulia gave an enigmatic shrug. She sniffed, shook her head slightly, and straightened her shoulders.

"Come on," she said softly. "That's everyone."

"I can't believe she dared come here," Caroline blurted finally, indignant as she watched Hayley flirt with Mason, laughing. Giulia shrugged, putting a smile on her face; she was too pragmatic to truly hold a grudge. She had bigger things to deal with.

But that didn't stop her striding over to Elijah, her expression lethal. Perched on the edge of an occasional-table while the others pored over photographs, Elijah smiled and observed, and watched her coming. He was aware of John Gilbert frowning across the coffee-table at them as he drew Giulia between his legs, her arms folded over her chest, hiding how upset she was, her back to everyone else.

" _You told her_ ," she whispered, her voice hoarse; he had been listening to her conversation with Caroline, half-amused by her friend, glad Giulia had finally admitted what she didn't dare cross the line by telling Elijah; that Giulia desperately missed her _father_. He sighed, tossing his hair out of his eyes; she wrinkled her nose delicately, raising her hand to push her fingers through his thick hair, pushing it out of his eyes. She wanted him to cut it shorter because he kept stealing her conditioner. He linked one arm around her waist, drawing her close, making sure he didn't spill his punch on the carpet.

"I did," he admitted on a soft sigh, stroking his thumb against her back. "Caroline could see you were struggling; she knew something was wrong. She thought…she asked if it were _me_ you're frightened of."

"I'm not _frightened_ of _dick_ ," Giulia said, scowling. Elijah chuckled at her colourful choice of phrase, reminded of Carafina. He leaned up to pepper dainty kisses against her jaw.

"Well, could you please tell Elizabeth Forbes that? I believe she is imagining me riddled with bullets," Elijah said softly, having noted Sheriff Forbes' sharp eyes on him more than once. "I imagine Caroline told her we are…what we are."

"Hopefully not in explicit detail," Giulia said, and Elijah fought not to roll his eyes, smirking.

"Hopefully not," he agreed. He took her hand, kissing the back of it, and smiled up at her. "You look exceptionally beautiful tonight," he told her. The red lipstick and her incredible fine eyelashes framing those glowing, mercurial eyes, her hair relaxed, the sleek mini-dress showing off her slim arms, her strong thighs, toned legs and her dainty little shoes… She was magnificent.

"Thank you," she said softly. Her phone went off, another timer, and she fiddled with it to turn the alarm off. He set his goblet down.

"What do you need me to put in the oven?" he asked; this was Giulia's evening, her friends and loved-ones. She should be out here with them, not cloistered in the kitchen. Not in that dress.

"I can –"

"Stay out here with your friends," he said gently, smiling. "I'll do the last things for you." She gazed at him for a moment, then smiled and leaned in to give him a tender kiss.

"Thank you," she murmured, and he was aware some of her guests had raised eyebrows, staring at them. "Everything's on the side, ready to go in the oven. My notebook's in there."

"Enjoy your guests," he said softly, subtly squeezed her ass and slipped away to the kitchen, where the decorated dishes were ready to have the cooked meats and vegetables added. He consulted Giulia's notebook and sketches, checked his watch, and put the sea-bass in the oven, removing the lamb and the duck to rest before he carved the cutlets and moved the whole duck to the serving-platter. He finished the red-wine and onion gravy for the lamb, warmed the other sauces and decanted them to gravy-boats, poached the vegetables and assembled every last thing Giulia had wanted.

* * *

"So, what, you're using Giulia to get at Elena now?" a voice asked, and Elijah licked gravy off his thumb, glancing up from the stove. "I mean, I guess she is the easier target, single girl living on her own, and all."

"Hello, Damon," Elijah said mildly, checking the peas. "You wouldn't happen to know where the colander lives? I'm afraid Rosemary must have put it away when she helped with the drying-up."

"How would I know?"

"You live here."

"I don't _cook_ ," Damon scoffed. "Must admit it's a little odd watching you…be _domestic_. The last time I saw you, you were shoving a No. 2 pencil through my neck."

"Well, you were quite rude," Elijah said politely. He glanced over at Damon. "Please do not make the mistake of ruining the evening for Giulia. More hard-work than you have ever done in your lifetime has gone into it."

"Oh, I know _that_ ," Damon scoffed, shrugging. "And I know Giulia would happily stab me in the eye with an oyster-fork if I made a scene out there…it's kind of where our relationship is right now."

"And whose fault is that?" Elijah asked mildly.

"Oh, I'm sure a lot of people would say it's mine."

"Including Zachary Salvatore, I'm sure," Elijah said, glancing at Damon, whose features, so like Giulia's but on a more masculine scale, smoothed into a familiar mask of perfect cheekbones and glowing, impenetrable eyes. "You could not imagine that killing Giulia's father would not have any repercussions for you."

"Stefan killed our dad and I got over it."

"The difference was your father also shot you and your brother in the back in cold blood," Elijah said, and Damon's eyes popped. "Yes. I've heard the story. Don't blame Giulia; it was your brother's friend Alexia who told me about the Salvatore brothers, years ago. She believed I might learn something from one brother's promise to the other to give him an eternity of misery for his actions." Elijah shrugged, finding the sought-after colander. He quickly turned out the perfect, huge round peas, adding a few nubs of butter, tossing them in the colander before pouring them into a tureen. He put a knife through a large new-potato to check they were done and turned them out into the colander, adding butter and sprigs of fresh mint before tossing them and adding them to another tureen.

"What are you doing here, Elijah?" Damon asked.

"Why don't you ask me the question you really want to?" Elijah smiled. He turned to face Damon, gazing expectantly at him. "What annoys you more, that you failed to kill me, or that you saw Giulia kissing me?"

"Technically, I _did_ kill you, let's not pretend I didn't," Damon sniffed, smirking. "And, hey, if you want after Giulia, that's your prerogative, I'm a fan of the whole dating-your-dinner thing, too, on occasion. Simplifies everything, don't you think?"

Elijah sighed, the smile fading from his face. He removed the tin-foil from the lamb where it had been resting, pulling out the carving-knife, and shook his head. "That was the wrong thing to say, Damon." A flicker of contrition coloured Damon's cheeks, but he merely narrowed his eyes, watched Elijah neatly carve the cutlets from the rack of lamb, and scoffed, sauntering off.

For all his bravado, it was gratifying to Elijah that it nettled Damon to see the two of them together. He had listened to Caroline's conversation with Giulia about him telling her about the werewolves, but so far no-one had approached Giulia about seeing them kissing. Perhaps they were too well-bred to make a scene, especially in Giulia's own house. Either way, something had jarred Damon out of apathy; he had seen Giulia with Elijah, and whatever emotions were now churning in his gut with the expensive bourbon, it was the single indication Elijah had gotten from Damon that he still cared about Giulia. Giulia believed Damon had lost interest in any kind of relationship with her the moment he had killed her father, because he had _ruined_ her. Elijah couldn't imagine anyone not wanting to have Giulia in their lives; but she wasn't a wide-eyed five-year-old anymore, and she _would_ question Damon's actions. She wouldn't let him off light, and he had done the unforgiveable. Withdrawing from Giulia, knowing he could never earn back Giulia's trust, was Damon's own weapon of self-defence from being hurt by her loss. Giulia hadn't been ruined by Damon; killing Zachary Salvatore had ruined the only happiness Damon knew – Giulia's love and friendship.

He turned back to the vegetables, gravy and sauces, finishing everything for Giulia so she could enjoy her guests. He knew he was the outsider here. Much as Giulia believed she was alone, she had all these people to invite to her table, to enjoy time with. Some, he knew, were to keep up the farce; some she genuinely enjoyed. Others were expected to show up despite rules of politeness; and he could feel Giulia's anger simmering low, her jitteriness, at the sight of the werewolf Hayley Marshall on her doorstep. The _nerve_ … But if it confirmed Giulia's suspicions, she would play the elegant hostess with impeccable manners.

Elijah was inclined to agree with Giulia that Hayley Marshall remaining in Mystic Falls without insurance of a protector was suspect. Mason Lockwood had heard nothing from Jules since she left town the night her friends were massacred. Too suspicious – nothing happened here in a vacuum; it was all connected, no matter how tenuous and abstract that connection.

* * *

"Oh my god, that's us!" Jenna gasped, beaming, as she turned a page in a photograph-album, and Giulia peered over her shoulder.

"Ah! Baby pictures!" Ric grinned mischievously. There was her mother, glorious and heavily-pregnant, with two small kids either side of her, grinning, the little girl with her arms around her waist, beaming from the bump that was Giulia. Tiny Jenna was adorable, strawberry-blonde and all eyes; Mason laughed at himself as a seven-year-old, his arm in a cast, missing several teeth, but undeniably cute.

"I remember that," Mason said fondly, peering close at the picture as others leaned over Jenna's shoulder to see. "What was it, like a Founders' Party our parents didn't want to take us to?"

"Gianna didn't want to leave the house, she was so close to her due-date," Liz spoke up, smiling at the photographs of tiny Jenna and Mason with Giulia's heavily-pregnant, extraordinarily-beautiful mother. It was jarring to hear that people in this room… _knew_ her _mother_. She wasn't just a figment of her father's imagination, the only proof of her existence _Giulia_ herself, Gianna Salvatore had once lived. She was real. She had a history, she'd had a life Giulia had never known anything about. "So instead of hiring a babysitter, she offered to have you two over. Mason, your mom had just passed away."

"I remember – I got that cast on my arm when I broke it, running away; I lived in a treehouse for three nights, until the ladder broke and I fell," Mason chuckled fondly. "My dad was so pissed, but Rich took me to the E.R. and bought me a milkshake after." Tyler raised his eyebrows at that; Giulia was sure his dad had never done anything like that for _Tyler_.

"What did she have us make? I'll _never_ forget that dinner Gianna made," Jenna said, glancing at Mason. "You remember, she made it in a pot and we all sat round the table without plates, just eating out of the pot with a spoon."

"It would've been chicken cacciatore," Damon spoke up, "her favourite."

"That's right! With tomatoes and olives and mushrooms in it," Mason grinned.

"My mom never believed I'd eaten it," Jenna smiled fondly. "But Gianna had us make something, too, I remember the mess, and Gianna putting us in that huge tub with all those bubbles."

"Gnocchi," Giulia said, turning the page, aware how deadened her voice sounded, looking at photographs of other kids enjoying cooking-time with _her_ mother. Because she had never been able to savour that. The next few photographs were obviously taken by Gianna, taking pictures of Mason grinning as he mashed potato, Jenna's little tongue sticking out as she stirred the stew.

"Your mom was a great cook too, you know," Liz smiled warmly at Giulia. "She _loved_ having dinner-parties. Birthdays, holidays…she wanted us all over here, making noise. Think she planned to fill every room in this place with children." She gave Giulia a sad smile, hugging her shoulders, knowing better than anyone how Giulia felt about her mother, and _her_ role in her mother's death. Damon gazed solemnly across the room at her, and Giulia fidgeted uncomfortably, Sheila's words about her being owed answers whispering through her mind.

Liz glanced at her, frowning softly. "Are you doing okay?"

"I'm fine," Giulia said lightly. Liz glanced over her shoulder toward the kitchen.

"Caroline told me…you're _seeing_ Elijah?"

"We met last autumn," Giulia said quietly. "Before all the rest of this mess."

Liz sighed heavily.

"You don't approve because he's…a lot of things?" Giulia laughed softly. He was older; he was a vampire; he was an Original; he was manoeuvring to have Elena killed in a ritual so he could murder his brother…

"Oh, it's not that, honey," Liz smiled. "If he treats you well, and…helps you through all the rough things…makes you laugh… That's all any parent can ask for their kid. It's all I want for Caroline, and for you; someone who appreciates how… _special_ you are… But you are your parents' daughter. You only fall in love once, and it's forever."

Her godmother, Liz knew her better than anyone still living. And Giulia respected her. And she knew that Liz was an authority on her dad, on the mother she had never known. She knew them all too well not to be accurate in what she told Giulia; and her concerns were…very real.

There was a reason Liz was the sheriff. She saw through things in a way other people couldn't.

"Giulia?" Elijah's soft voice cut through the chatter and laughter, and she glanced over her shoulder. Elijah winked subtly at her.

"Everything's ready," he said, nodding toward the dining-room. "If you want to take photographs before we all sit. I suggest we light the candles."

"I've got it," Bonnie spoke up quietly, glancing at Giulia with an apologetic smile. She stopped short at the doorway into the China Room. " _Whoa_."

"It's a bit much, isn't it?" Giulia said thoughtfully, smiling smugly to herself at the impressed look on Bonnie's face.

"It's…amazing," Bonnie said earnestly, glancing at Giulia. She then closed her eyes, took a breath, and golden light suddenly illuminated the entire room, candles flickering everywhere, making the gilt glint, sparkling off the crystal, bathing the food in bright golden light.

"Everyone, if you'd like to come into the dining-room, everything's ready for you," Giulia said, turning to beam at Elijah. The others followed her into the China Room, gasping and making comments appropriate to the level of hard-work Giulia had put into the spread.

" _Wow_!" Caroline beamed. "Okay. When I get married, I want it to look _just_ like this!"

"You did all of this as a trial-run for the Historical Society dinner?" Carol said softly, wonder in her eyes as she smiled, wandering the length of the table, taking in the antiques, the exquisite-looking desserts, smelling the air as she passed the roasted lamb, the fragrant duck, the steaming gravy. Giulia smiled, taking photographs of the details. After circling the table, admiring everything, everyone sat down in front of their name-cards: there were two empty seats, and Hayley Marshall's appearance had evened out the seating-arrangement. Drinks were poured, and Giulia was coaxed to stand up by her seat at the centre of the table, favoured guests radiating from her and Elijah, sat beside her. He smiled up at her, as she stood, glass in hand, her arm draped around his shoulders.

"Hey," a voice said, and she glanced around, the others fidgeting, still gazing in wonder at the food she had created, the savoury, sticky-sweet scents in the air, the flowers mingled with the warmed, ripe fruit, the steaming gravies and the golden pastry, the tang of the wine and the warm scent of the sunshine as the sun set behind them. Stefan had appeared, holding hands with Elena, who looked pouty and disdainful, her sheet of dark hair shimmering around her face. She flicked her dark eyes to Giulia, then frowned subtly. "Oh. You guys are about to start. Sorry to interrupt." There was no apology in Stefan's eyes; he knew exactly what he was doing.

Giulia gave him a quelling look through her eyelashes, chin raised, challenging him. "I thought you would eventually show up with Elena," she said gently, using her wine-glass to gesture at the two empty chairs at opposite ends of the table, farthest away from her and Elijah – Elena next to John, Stefan next to Bonnie. Stefan had been raised in a time when etiquette was still important; he knew the significance of banishing them to the farthest seats from the host. "I left two places for you."

She saw right through him, and Stefan knew it. She hadn't wanted to invite Elena because tonight, as much as things were going to happen _because_ of her, wasn't _about_ her. _Giulia_ had put in all the hard-work, this was something _she_ had wanted to do, something she had wanted to treat _her_ friends and loved-ones to, people she _respected_. He should have recognised it would be the height of ill-breeding to send them upstairs with grilled-cheese, the wicked witch in the situation.

"If you knew you were going to manipulate an invitation, you could've at least put on a pretty dress," Caroline scolded lightly, sitting opposite Elijah. Her expression as she raised her eyebrows at Elena was a proverbial slap in the face, accusatory and indignant on Giulia's behalf, recognising the ill-breeding in their underhanded behaviour. Elena flushed, taking her seat, and Stefan glanced around for the other empty seat, his glance flitting to Giulia before he set off toward the other end of the table. Elena sat uncomfortably, frowning at John, who poured her some lemonade; she draped a linen napkin in her lap and Giulia turned to the rest of her guests, clearing her throat subtly.

"I… I've been planning this project, this _dinner_ , for months now, it was something that interested me last summer when I realised our town's charter was signed one hundred and fifty years ago," Giulia said, glancing around at her guests. "I originally started cooking all of this food as a trial-run for the dinner for the Historical Society, and I didn't know what to do with it all! And I decided it was an incredible opportunity to bring all of us together to just…enjoy each other's company, and appreciate that we are here. I look around and am reminded that…in the last year we have all suffered incredible losses, and at the moment we are all in…quite a considerable amount of danger." She glanced down at Elijah, whose features were solemn but warm, coaxing her on. "Now it's even more important than ever to know who your true friends are," she said, gaze lingering on Elena for a moment, Damon and Stefan; she beamed at Caroline across the table, "and to protect them. We have all gone through a lot, some more than others," she said, smiling at Tyler, whose mother smiled at him with sparkling eyes beside him; Giulia glanced at Caroline, and Liz, "and some of you continue to inspire me with your kindness and unselfishness every day. I am very lucky to look around and be able to count you all as people in my life that I love and admire; without you, my life would be poorer for it. So…this dinner is an opportunity for me to just say thank you. So, I invite you all to eat as much as you want; don't feel you have to try everything, I've already seen a few of you looking a little alarmed at the calf's _tongue_. Help yourselves; serve each other. Enjoy." To laughter from her guests, Giulia sat down, a little flushed.

It was wonderful. Everything she had been cooking over the last few days, she was finally able to enjoy. Everyone asked her about how she had cooked this, why she had made that, and Damon and Stefan provided a unique insight into the lives of the original Founding Families, the parties they had been invited to, the balls and dinners they had attended, their favourite food – Rose and Stefan squabbled over the calf's tongue, to Elena's wide-eyed disgust – and…it was lovely. A _lovely_ evening, eighteen people sharing a culinary retrospective, listening to stories and admiring Giulia's research and cooking skills, her dedication to accuracy, laughing and joking, just…enjoying the intimacy of a shared secret.

Nobody commented on Elijah draping his arm around her waist as they rested between platefuls. They included Elijah in jokes and relaxed as they witnessed Giulia teasing him; Stefan and Elena remained quiet, Elena still burning from Caroline's scolding, Stefan contrite about trying to manipulate their way to the table; Carol was curious about Elijah, and he seemed to click with Liz, sat on his other side; and they learned a little of Hayley's history, her sob-story; Damon looked highly surprised when Rose told them Elijah had given her a daylight-ring; Tyler and Caroline talked about school; Jeremy mentioned the summer programme he wanted to attend in New York; Giulia got into a teasing argument with Elijah over him being a dessert-thief. She was surprised so many of the serving-platters emptied; wine continued to be poured, and for a little while it seemed everyone managed to forget themselves and just enjoy being in the moment. Caroline took a few photographs, candid ones, and the well-brought-up girl she was, she helped Giulia and Elijah clean away the empty savoury-course plates and serving platters on the cart, wheeling it straight into the kitchen to be cleaned up later.

"Alright," Giulia grinned, knowing this was going to be Elijah's favourite part, and certainly the prettiest part of the meal. She had _loved_ the duck, and the venison pie, the asparagus-soup and creamed leeks, the stuffed tomatoes, the lamb had been succulent and delicious. She was a savoury person; Elijah, he was the sweet. She stood again, retrieving a silver cake-slice box from the server. "I hope everyone has some champagne."

" _Veuve Clicquot_ ," Carol beamed, impressed, as she raised her delicate saucer in salute. "Delicious."

"Well, I would like to ask Elijah; would you please do the honours and take the first slice out of the Charlotte Russe?" she asked, presenting him with the silver box, opening the lid. He lifted his dark eyes to hers, sharing an intimate look, and he took hold of the silver dagger and the cake-slice, standing to lean over the table to the dessert-stand. Giulia held her breath as he cut, biting her lip, anxious that it all held – she had had bad luck with the Bavarian cream – and noticed Damon's completely nonplussed look as he recognised the knife in Elijah's hand was not actually a cake-knife, but the silver-dagger he had been given by John – and hidden, in the library.

Damon stared at the knife, his gaze shifting, shocked, to Giulia, who raised an eyebrow tartly, before grinning at Elijah and hovering beneath his hands as he lifted the first slice of Charlotte Russe cake. It came away perfectly, and she breathed a sigh of relief. Some of the others applauded.

"If you can manage anything else, please help yourself to desserts. We have an assortment of blancmanges, jellies and cakes. Brandy-snaps and bonbons and stem-ginger; there are also homemade blackcurrant pastilles, a rhubarb-tart, and there is amaretto-spiked cream and mascarpone to go with the poached peaches; there is crystallised pineapple; help yourself to fresh fruit. All of the flowers _on_ the desserts are edible; there are sauces and syrups dotted around, and fresh cream. Help yourself, let me know what you think. I know which recipes are going on _my_ list to make again."

"Liz, what can I help you to?" Elijah asked, smiling, and everyone started helping each other pick out what they wanted. Giulia felt like she was about to burst, glad she had worn a dress with some give, and no underwear! She was warm, slightly fuzzy from the amount of alcohol, but it was a delicious feeling, she was… _happy_. There was a delighted hum of conversation and laughter, the silver-dagger continued to be used to cut slices from the Charlotte Russe piled high with fresh strawberries so ripe and red inside, they made even Giulia's mouth water. She helped herself to some petit-fours, a brandy-snap, some of the poached peach halves and a couple of bonbons and a chocolate; she kept eyeing Elijah's large slice of the Charlotte Russe, long enough that he sighed, smiled, and offered her a spoonful, feeding her. He chuckled, replaced his spoon with a kiss, and she smiled and licked her lips, running her hand through his hair affectionately.

"Okay, that's it, this is my favourite dessert _ever_ ," Jenna declared, practically licking her bowl; she had consumed at least four of the poached peach halves.

"Well, they were poached in sweet wine," Giulia laughed, and Jenna grinned as Ric teased her about her love of _vino_.

"Seriously, Giulia, they were delicious – _everything_ has been delicious," Jenna beamed, looking a little flushed from the wine.

"The fish was perfect," Carol spoke up, beaming. "Those yellow cherry-tomatoes on the vine were…divine."

"And I've never tried tongue before," Hayley spoke up.

"You actually tried it?!" Mason laughed.

"It's never gonna be put in front of me ever again," Hayley shrugged, laughing. "Why not?"

"Well, _I_ am gonna sleep so well tonight after that _pie_ ," Jeremy smiled proudly at Giulia. "It was amazing. And I haven't had Jell-O since I was about eight. Although it was weird to eat part of someone's face."

"Alice wouldn't have minded; she'd have thought you were handsome," Damon said, with a withering roll of his eyes, looking amused.

"Who was Alice?"

"Alice was my wife," Damon said, settling back in his chair with his champagne. "Pre-Katherine. Giulia's great-great-great – how many times? Great-grandmother. Needless to say my good looks survived the generations."

"I think actually Gianna can be thanked for them," Liz chuckled. "Or Doll – she was stunning until the day she died."

"Yeah, she was," Damon grinned lazily. "She was a bombshell. Kept me in my place, that's for sure. Kinda like Joshua. He was always my favourite, of all of them – all of my _descendants_."

"Wait, you and Giulia actually _are_ related?" Tyler said, glancing at Giulia.

"Yup," Damon nodded. "Giulia's lineage traces back directly to _me_ , and my son who was born to Alice in 1863."

"She was a sweet girl," Stefan said quietly. Giulia sipped her champagne; Alice had died giving birth to Damon's son and only child. Maids and a compelled guardian had raised him while Damon sought to protect him by leaving Mystic Falls, sending letters home, letting his son grow up believing he was merely working in New York, in Europe. Truthfully Damon had built a small trading empire, with which part of Giulia's fortune had been built before he eventually got bored, and sold it, passing the fortune on to his son.

"It's very strange to hear you talk about our ancestors as if you've just come from their houses," Carol smiled, elbows on the table, hands clasped. "You must miss them sometimes."

"Some," Damon admitted, with a shrug. "But that's life; people come in and out of our lives and leave impressions. Sometimes we're just lucky to have those memories, even if they make us morbidly depressed later, for a little while – 'til it doesn't hurt so much anymore."

* * *

When everyone had had enough to eat, Caroline helped Giulia carry the honeysuckle tiered stands out to the great-room, placing them on the table with the coffee-service for people to nibble at. Belt-buckles were loosened, and a lot of people groaned as they settled into the squashy chairs. Damon lingered thoughtfully by the Charlotte Russe, the silver-dagger covered in strawberry Bavarian cream, before he sighed, shook his head, thinking better of the fleeting thought, and followed everyone for some coffee. How had she known – how had she found the dagger?

Hayley approached her. Giulia watched her, guarded; she still wasn't comfortable with her being here, but she was too well-bred to make a scene.

"Hey," she said hesitantly, wringing her hands nervously. "I just…wanted to say thank you, for letting me stay, I know it's…weird, me showing up with Mason."

"That's the weird part?" Giulia asked coolly.

"Can I ask…? When you said you'd taken _precautions_ to keep the moonstone hidden, what did you mean?" Hayley asked, and Giulia raised her eyebrow, sizing her up, things triggering in her brain, and she sighed.

"I took inspiration from Harry Potter," she said. " _I_ am how the story would've gone if Sirius had been the Secret Keeper. We'd both die before we betrayed our friends… Did you leave with Jules?"

"I came back," Hayley shrugged. "I like this town, it's cute." Giulia gave her a chilling look as Hayley's eyes lingered on Mason. Giulia scoffed, shaking her head. They both knew exactly why Hayley had stuck around. And a self-absorbed girl like Hayley wasn't too stupid that she wouldn't recognise the danger in coming back – not when she had been party to what was done to Giulia, not when an Original vampire was around, not when werewolves were in short supply and a necessary ingredient for a sacrifice ritual.

"Where's Jules?" Giulia asked baldly.

Hayley's hazel eyes flickered, she set her jaw. "She left. You don't have to worry about her anymore." Giulia caught Elijah's eye; Tyler had told Giulia that he had seen Hayley talking to Luca, Elijah's younger _warlock_.

With Hayley and Jules the only survivors from their pack, it had seemed strange that Hayley had stuck around… She liked a protector, someone who would provide for her, without her having to do much besides, well, take what they gave her. Wherever they wanted to put it.

Giulia imagined, and Elijah agreed with her, that Klaus had managed to get to them. To Jules and Hayley, possibly before they had even left Mystic Falls. Werewolves were a precious commodity. Hayley was walking around, unafraid, despite knowing what she had done, and what would possibly happen should people learn of it. She was sticking close to Mason and trying to get in with Tyler. _Plan B, Plan C…Plan D_ …

It was important for more than one reason for everyone to be gathered at the house, to witness.

"Oh, I don't worry about people like Jules," Giulia told her. "They tend to get what they deserve."

Fresh coffee was poured and handed out, the 'kids' focused on the sweets still offered enticingly on the delicate, trembling stands, and they laughed and enjoyed the time-warp of looking through the old photograph-albums. Giulia sat pressed up against Elijah, head on her shoulder, with Caroline doing the same on hers, loosely clasping her mom's hand as Liz and Carol told stories, talking about Joshua Salvatore, about Mason's mother, who had both had an incredible sense of humour; Joshua used to like scaring the hell out of them playing hide-and-seek here as kids, he had been a bright flame all the moths had fluttered to, enigmatic, charming, an honestly decent person, but trouble, in the best way. A lot like Giulia, Liz said; but she had Zach's calmer influence, and Caroline asked if Joshua Salvatore was her almost-dad. If he hadn't disappeared, would Liz have married Joshua?

"Well, if he hadn't disappeared…you'd probably be brunette," Liz said, and Caroline looked stumped, as if the idea of her being brunette had never occurred to her. The vision Giulia got was a little eerie, and she wondered where Caroline would be in ten, twenty, one hundred years, how many lives would she have lived, how many adventures, lovers, hair-cuts. Listening to Damon and Stefan talk about their human lives, it was interesting to compare them to the people they were now, their flaws and their strengths, how they had evolved, and in some ways, struggled. But Caroline was neither burdened with resentment toward anyone nor stricken with grief, or addiction. She was Caroline. Giulia wondered what her future would hold.

As if sensing her concealed sadness, Elijah squeezed her to his side, pressing a kiss to her temple. She gave him a sleepy smile, letting him know she was okay.

She saw murmurs passed between Tyler and Mason, while Carol elegantly concealed yawns, and annoyance flashed across Hayley's face as Carol announced it was time for them to head home, a school-night; she had a busy schedule tomorrow and Tyler had school. Mason, who had been talking seriously with Liz for a little while, told her he'd give her a call in the morning, and the Lockwoods said their goodbyes, Hayley trailing after them. Giulia glanced at Elijah, who gave her a look. It was important Hayley had been allowed to stay and observe everything…but not this next part.

Hayley couldn't have any idea that Klaus' other spy had been discovered; she couldn't tell him what they had done to John Gilbert.

* * *

They waited a quarter-hour, Elijah giving her a look to confirm there was no-one lurking around the Boarding House to use supernatural hearing to eavesdrop. Then he strolled out of the China Room, the clean silver-dagger in his hands. He paused behind John's chair, as Damon stilled, and the others grew uneasy.

"Now, John, I do have a simple question," Elijah said, his voice so mild, twiddling the dagger in his hand against the tip of his finger. He drew blood, licking the blood off his finger. "How does a man like you come to acquire a rare supernatural artefact such as this silver-dagger?"

John glanced over his shoulder, looking highly alarmed.

"Oh, I know – it was supposed to be a grand secret, your ploy to have Damon killed to ensure Elena's safety in his attempt to assassinate me," Elijah sighed. "I'm afraid I have to disappoint you: Damon using the dagger on me would not kill him. A clever lie made up centuries ago to protect the Originals from coups. So, I ask you… Who gave you the dagger?"

"Isobel," John blurted anxiously. "A few weeks ago."

"Interesting," Elijah said, raising his eyebrows as he glanced at Giulia. "I must say I'm a little disappointed in Klaus. He should know better than anyone, lies are all in the details."

Giulia leaned forward, and whispered theatrically to John, "Isobel's _desiccating_. Has been since the night she left town." She patted his knee sympathetically, as John stared at her, terrified.

"Oh, don't worry, John, you weren't to know," Elijah tutted softly. "Giulia is so clever at concealing secrets." He winked at her. "Like the moonstone I know you overheard Hayley asking her about earlier."

"What's going on?" Stefan asked, frowning. Elijah glanced at Giulia, his expression mild, almost teasing.

"Would you like to do the honours?" he asked.

"I think so," Giulia nodded, sipping the last of her coffee. She glanced around the room, the curious, confused faces. "Klaus got to John."

"What?"

"That silver-dagger – Klaus keeps them close, he has for a thousand years," Giulia said, gesturing to the dagger Elijah was casually twirling through his fingers, his expression sombre as he watched candlelight flash off the blade. "There's only one way John would've ever acquired one, and that's directly from the source."

"That's ridiculous," John frowned. "I met Isobel at a café in Grove Hill after Stefan called me; she gave me the dagger."

"He has no idea Klaus got to him," Elijah said gently, as Damon stood, a predatory glare on his face, Jenna anxious on the daybed with Ric. The way Elijah stood behind John, it was almost protective, as if daring Stefan or Damon to attack in their anger and confusion. The brothers tended to fly off the handle without thought when there seemed to be danger posed to Elena's safety. "And there is only one way of telling how deeply Klaus' compulsion goes…" He glanced at Sheila, who nodded solemnly, rising from the armchair where she was sipping liqueur.

Before he knew it, Sheila's hands were on John's head, her eyes closed, and he was screaming in pain. To magically lift compulsion from someone's mind was painful, Sheila had assured her; the more a person had been compelled, the more it would hurt. And Klaus had been clever enough to conceal that he had even compelled John, who had no idea. John had been acting on Klaus' behalf for days and had no idea. But Klaus had made an error; he hadn't counted on Giulia knowing exactly where Isobel Flemming was – lying desiccated exactly where Giulia had put her months ago. He had built John's story on tenuous half-truths, and what _John_ knew, which was that Isobel had left town and hadn't been heard from since, but she was also a research expert and had managed to find Katerina Petrova when Klaus had failed to do so for five centuries. He'd used John's faith in Isobel's talents as a research-expert to frame the story, because the others knew she was an expert on the supernatural too.

Something happened while Sheila did her work, he wasn't the only one to see it. In the candlelight, the sound of John Gilbert's anguished screams, the group of people watching, doing nothing to stop it, confused and agitated but waiting, expectant… Giulia slipped away with only Caroline noticing. Elijah glanced at her, and followed after her; he found Giulia, gasping and shaking, her hands trembling, her face pale, sweat dotting her brow, her knees weak, in the basement. Outside the cellar-door where she had found her father. In the anaemic track-lighting Giulia looked _ill_ , her wide eyes, the hollows under her cheeks warped and exaggerated by the light, casting a greyish-blue tinge to her skin. She paced, anxious and upset, gasping, her heartbeat thudding against her ribcage, and she saw Elijah in the shadows and jumped a mile, having not heard him approach, her hands over her ears as John Gilbert's screams. He reached out, taking her hand, and gently pulled her to him, enveloping her into a hug with his whole body, wrapping himself around her; she trembled in his arms, gasping for breath as memories overwhelmed her.

"I'm fine," she blurted shakily into his shoulder.

"I know," Elijah said softly, squeezing her tighter. He held onto her, stroking her long hair, her back, soothing her, murmuring in her ear, giving her tiny kisses. Just holding her seemed to be the best thing, though, and she gentled in his arms, her heartbeat settling more steadily, warm and safe in his arms. He heard the movement, and glanced over. Caroline's fair hair glinted in the meagre, unflattering light, her features incredibly sad. He nodded her over.

"I shall make sure Sheila isn't wearying herself," he said, unwrapping himself from Giulia. He lifted Giulia's chin with his fingertips, gazing into her eyes, and pressed a lingering kiss to her lips, sighing into it, stroking her chin with his thumbs, and let Caroline slip in, taking his place to hug an upset Giulia.

John was a mess when Sheila was finally finished; she had drawn from Elijah after Bonnie voiced concerns that the spell was taking too long, taking too much of her energy. Blood dripping from his eyes, nose and ears, John panted, slumped in the chair, Damon tutting about blood on the carpet as he sipped his bourbon. Sheila sat down with a weary sigh, handed a new little glass of liqueur by Elijah, who turned to John, gently shaking the dazed man.

"Oh, god," John blurted, as he seemed to come into focus, shuddering and staring around at them with wide eyes, seemingly stunned to find himself there. " _Oh, god_!"

"Let's have a little chat, John."

* * *

 **A.N.** : A bit different, huh? And did you catch the hint that Hayley's working for Klaus? Because, that's totally her. And it establishes a history between them for later stories.


	39. Trust

**A.N.** : Thank you to everyone who reviewed. I was in a bit of a smutty mood, so there's a few more treats for you…

* * *

 **Dangerous Beauty**

 _39_

 _Trust_

* * *

Flipping John Gilbert was easy: Elijah extracted every little nugget of information that could ever possibly be useful, and Giulia pieced together what some of Klaus' backup-plans were by those tiny details. John was apologetic, genuinely horrified he had been found by Klaus, and used to try and get Elijah out of the way, leaving a clearer shot at Elena. When every bit of information Klaus had stolen from John was aired out to them all, shocked by how much John knew – which now _Klaus_ knew – Elijah sort of…reset the compulsion. With a few creative loopholes of his own, in his own way protecting John from his brother, and ensuring they would be kept informed of Klaus' activities but ensuring they couldn't be passed on false information.

Giulia then handed John an understated ring nobody would ever look at twice. Sheila had performed the spell Emily Bennett had cast on two rings for the Gilbert brothers decades ago. Elijah had protected John's mind, and oddly, through his compulsion, John's freedom of choice; Giulia ensured, with Sheila's help, that he was protected from Klaus. Should Klaus figure out that John had been discovered as his spy, he would inevitably dispose of the liability. He had Hayley, though, Giulia was sure, so whatever happened to John, he had made contingencies. How useful Hayley would be, well, that was up for debate. Especially because now Caroline – and by extension, Giulia was sure, Liz – knew what the werewolves had done to Giulia; Ric, Jenna and Sheila also knew. And Liz wouldn't keep it secret from Carol that the girl hanging around Mason and Tyler was dangerous, involved in the kidnapping and torture of Caroline to lure Tyler to them so he could be used as hostage against Mason. Giulia had suggested Liz might clue Carol in; she doubted Tyler wanted to trouble his mom any more than he already had. Carol had a lot to work out; but Mason had a protective streak, and a…desire to see the best in people; he'd want to look out for Hayley. Especially if they were sleeping together; he'd done everything he could to help Katherine, after all.

But Hayley was no Katerina.

They had sent the others up to bed, and Giulia stood at the sink, hand-washing everything she had used to set the table.

"I think that went well," Elijah said, his sleeves pushed up to his elbows, drying the dishes and stacking them neatly on the trolley. With every full load, he replaced the cleaned crockery and silverware in the butler's pantry and the China Room. Though she was bone-tired from the heat of the day and the food, the alcohol, Giulia knew the more she cleaned up tonight the less would be waiting for her in the morning.

"Well, nobody died," Giulia said thoughtfully, her eyes on the silver-dagger resting on the windowsill in front of the sink, still sudsy. "Did you see Damon's face when he realised you had the dagger?"

"I did," Elijah smiled; they had to take pleasure at little moments like that.

"I think we did the right thing with John," Giulia frowned thoughtfully, catching sight of her own reflection in the open window as she carefully washed a crystal bonbon-basket. Outside, owls hooted, night insects chirped and the breeze rustled the leaves, bringing in the scent of flowers.

"I think it was best," Elijah said, biting his lip. "We have done all we can to ensure Niklaus does not discover we know he has been using John; we will still be fed information; and if Niklaus does find out, we have protected John from his wrath."

"And you're sure there was no-one eavesdropping on what happened after?"

"Unless someone was concealed by magic, and Sheila assured me there was not," Elijah said, giving her a warm, twinkly smile. "She told me you'd already made necessary precautions to alert you if someone does approach using cloaking magic." Giulia shrugged, smiling at him.

"I know I can't think of everything," she sighed, "but what I can think of, I've put in place to help protect everyone."

"And you're certain Hayley is working for Niklaus?" Elijah asked.

"Well, I can't be certain until I catch them in bed together," Giulia said, smirking, "literally and figuratively. But Hayley's kind of…a Peter Pettigrew. Likes to be looked after, have the biggest protector on the playground."

"I did overhear your Harry Potter reference earlier," he chuckled softly, shaking his head. "Ashlyn will never forgive Carafina for having one of her witch-friends enchant an owl to deliver her Hogwarts letter."

"Oh, that is _cruel_ ," Giulia gasped, pressing her lips together so she didn't betray a smile. "She didn't?"

"Ashlyn was devastated," Elijah said, catching Giulia's eye, and they both laughed. "Why did you tell Hayley you've protected the moonstone?"

"So that your brother knows," Giulia said, shrugging delicately. "She was there and saw what her friends did to me; no matter how much pain I was in or what they did to me, I never said a word – well, except to hit every nerve they had… He needs to know I won't be bullied into giving up that moonstone. Not until I'm ready for him to have it." Elijah sighed softly, shaking his head. "You disapprove?"

"It's likely Niklaus will take that as a challenge," he said. Giulia nodded, acknowledging that.

"It won't change anything," she told him. "He will _not_ get the moonstone. Your brother will have at least two witches with him, they'll make guesses how I protected the moonstone's location. And I've protected my friends. He can't hurt them to get to me." Elijah gave her a warm, proud smile, drawing her close for a kiss. He smiled, rubbing the back of a finger against her cheek, and sighed, turning back to the drying-up.

"You really think Hayley is a spy for Niklaus?"

"It makes sense. Two werewolves fled town that night; Klaus wouldn't take the risk that Mason and Tyler might skip town," Giulia said. "My guess is that…he caught up with Jules and Hayley when they fled, and offered them a deal… Nasty as she was to me, to everyone else, I think in another circumstance Jules might have actually been a very good mentor to someone like Tyler – someone like _Hayley_. All of her friends are dead, her brother, her lover; why wouldn't she make the sacrifice to let Hayley live and be free, when she's young and can turn her life around and not make her mistakes? I'm sure Klaus probably made a game of offering them the choice – when forcing them to fight each other for the privilege of their lives failed. Hayley's not a fighter, and I think Jules lost her desire to survive. I don't think Hayley would've really cared that Jules made the sacrifice for her; she's just doing what she can to get ahead, but Klaus wouldn't just let her go, when he can use her as insurance."

"So we have a new mole," Elijah sighed.

"One who can't be compelled," Giulia said, glancing at Elijah, raising her eyebrow. "Although I'm sure your brother found ways of coercing her to do his bidding." Elijah glanced at her, then shuddered; she laughed. "The combination of his ego and her bravado would make for interesting conversation; both the victims in their stories."

"From the research Liz dug up on her, I'm quite surprised Hayley turned out to be what she is," Elijah said thoughtfully. "She had a stable home from infancy, she was…"

"Spoiled," Giulia said. "That's just as dangerous as being neglected, though. It explains why she's so self-interested, refuses responsibility."

"I did have to laugh earlier when Caroline tore into Mason about Hayley finding a job to support herself," Elijah chuckled. "It's true that werewolves are only truly affected by what they are once a month, during the evening. They have far more opportunities open to them than vampires."

"I suppose there's more that goes with it than just the transformation itself," Giulia said. "I've noticed the personalities of most werewolves I've met are, uh… Well, I can imagine why it was difficult for a lot of them to hold down jobs; and the supernatural has nothing to do with it."

"Your friend Tyler seems to be handling it well," Elijah observed.

"Better than expected, actually," Giulia said. "I think his transformation has actually _settled_ him. He's far more relaxed than he ever was before."

"Some people suit the supernatural," Elijah said softly. "Your friends Tyler and Caroline are two of those people."

"I'd be atrocious," Giulia said, deadpan, and Elijah chuckled.

Elijah chuckled. "You are quite the handful already."

"I am," Giulia smiled at him, and he chuckled.

"I did notice Sheila Bennett's granddaughter trying to make overtures," Elijah said, glancing subtly at her. Giulia sighed, continuing washing the dishes; she emptied the sink and filled it with fresh water and bubbles. "I imagine she's had long enough to realise what a loss your friendship is."

Giulia shrugged delicately. "Does it make me a horrible person to say I'm too busy to wait for her to try and make amends?"

"No; because it's true," Elijah said, "what with you catering to my every whim and fantasy." Giulia smiled as he chuckled, leaning closer, and gave him a kiss. She smiled up at him, shy, but wrapped her arms around his neck, drawing him close.

"Thank you for tonight," she said softly, turning to press a kiss against his neck.

"You did all the work," Elijah told her. He flicked the tip of her nose affectionately, darting in to stamp a kiss against her lips. He gave her an earnest, seeking look. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," Giulia said tiredly, shrugging a shoulder. She sighed. "I could do without Hayley sniffing around your witches, but…it's too late to think about it tonight, I'm way too tired and _full_."

"She has approached the Martins?" Elijah frowned, and Giulia nodded.

"Tyler texted me that he saw her downtown, talking to the younger one," Giulia said. "Guess he's moved on from Bonnie."

"So my brother has discovered my witches," Elijah sighed.

"They're helping you because you've promised to free Dr Martin's daughter," Giulia said. "Why bother dealing with you, when they can ally with Klaus and be right by her side?"

"I sincerely hope the thought does not hold sway with Dr Martin," Elijah sighed heavily. "Niklaus will only dispose of them after he gets what he wants. He abhors being indebted to anyone."

"I think Dr Martin's too desperate to free his daughter to think about any long-term repercussions," Giulia mused. They both knew what would happen if Dr Martin chose to switch alliances; and it was a horrible thing to anticipate. Betrayal.

"The Martin witches believe Niklaus has taken Greta hostage, like a princess in the tower, beyond a great fiery dragon," Elijah said quietly. "I do not know which is worse, to know your daughter has been taken by a man like Klaus; or the realisation that she went of her own accord, seduced by him."

"Yuck," Giulia wrinkled her nose after a moment, reflecting on that thought. "A _popular_ boy, your brother."

"That's one way of putting it," Elijah sighed, looking mildly disdainful. "He believes himself to be charming and irresistible; some fall into the trap. Inevitably they become disillusioned; but by then it is too late."

"So, Hayley and Greta," Giulia sighed, shaking her head, tutting. Greta and Hayley made it three; Giulia wondered if Jules made it a party.

"Niklaus was never very discriminating where lovers were concerned," Elijah sighed. "He never had favourites; I do not believe he has ever in his lifetime truly been able to form a connection with anyone."

"Well, he's a sociopath," Giulia said fairly. "He's excellent at mimicking emotions, but is fundamentally incapable of experiencing them. He utterly lacks compassion. I wonder if he's the origin of the 'off-switch' theory."

"Oh, without a doubt," Elijah said, drying the last coffee-cup.

"That's the last of it," Giulia sighed, rubbing her tired eyes. They had finished the dishes; it was only one a.m. "Come on, let's go to bed." Elijah hung up the damp dishtowels neatly, and Giulia got the lights before they wandered upstairs, hand-in-hand. The rest of the house was dark, and Elijah told her that Liz and Caroline were asleep; there was _activity_ from Damon's bedroom, and Elena had left the Boarding House with Jenna and Ric. All Elijah heard from Stefan's room was the scratch of his pen against paper.

The scent of sage tickling her nose, Giulia set the silver-dagger on her old nightstand, and Elijah stripped out of his clothes before unzipping her dress. Exhausted, full from dinner, they slipped naked beneath the covers, and groaned with relief. Giulia curled up beside Elijah, his body purposely cool from not drinking coffee so he could keep _her_ cool during the night while the heat-wave continued to make her uncomfortable. She smiled, shivering slightly at the chill against her body, and pressed a kiss to his jaw, sighing.

But he didn't fall asleep; Giulia could hear his mind whirring. She propped her head on her hand, and gazed down at him. "What's going on in there?" she asked gently, stroking his hair back from his forehead.

Elijah sighed. "Just…thinking of the possibilities."

"The possibilities of what?"

"Of everything," Elijah said, his face stony as he opened his eyes, flicking them over her face. She frowned softly, distracted by his hand smoothing its way up her thigh, across her stomach, his eyes dipping to her breasts. He let out a shaky breath, shoving his head back against the pillows, and ground his jaw, staring up at the ceiling. She sighed.

"He had three daggers available," Giulia told him. "We have one. He'll give one to Hayley so the Martins can make their own choice. That leaves only _one_ , for him to finish the job himself. That will leave Kol free from the danger of being daggered. After he gets what he wants, we both know what he'll do… He doesn't realise you know the lie; but he is _still_ frightened of Mikael. He'll go looking for more werewolves."

"You can't be certain of that," Elijah said softly.

"I believe it," Giulia said, gazing at his features lovingly. "I think he's built up expectations of what lifting this _curse_ will mean for him." From what Willem had told her, confirming what she had guessed, he had no chance; and it was amusing. She was going to enjoy seeing him get exactly what he wanted – and everything he would come to regret.

"You talk as if I am fully convinced _not_ killing him is the best option," Elijah said, glancing at her.

"You want me to try and convince you again?" she asked, raising her eyebrows, hand slipping down under the covers between them, and his stomach-muscles contracted, exhaling sharply, his eyes rolling back. His lips parted, he bit down on his lower-lip, he peeked his eyes open, and grabbed her wrist, pulling her hand away. She huffed, disappointed.

"You think my brother does not deserve to be slaughtered, as mercilessly as he killed our mother?" he asked, frowning. They had had the argument of letting Klaus live versus putting Elijah through the crippling guilt and agony of having murdered his own brother, no matter what kind of a brother he had been to his siblings for a thousand years. Giulia's arguments were valid, but without having spoken to Willem himself, Elijah wouldn't know just how accurate they were; he had to take it on faith that what Giulia guessed was the true state of things.

"I think he deserves to be _punished_ for it," Giulia said earnestly. "I _don't_ think you deserve to have his death on your conscience for eternity. Because I know you; it would haunt you, no matter who he is."

"Niklaus is not my only concern," Elijah said, and his eyes lanced to her, his fingers tracing up and down her back, making her curl against him and shiver. She sighed, took her hands in his, entwining their fingers, and climbed into his lap, pressing their clasped hands against the pillow either side of his head, gazing down at him.

"Do you trust me?" she asked, not breaking eye-contact. Elijah gazed up at her, and after a moment, he sighed.

"I do," he admitted.

"And you trust that I understand what Klaus is capable of?" she said softly. "Do you trust that I have thought through every move, every counter-action, every permutation, I know exactly how he is going to act. _I_ have engineered _everything_ so that he has only very limited paths open to him." She sighed, dipping her head, to press her lips against his, savouring the gentleness and excitement of the kiss, his hips shifting ever so subtly beneath hers, aligning things perfectly so the subtle rock of his hips caught her in the perfect place. She gasped when their lips parted, and pressed her forehead to his, gazing into his eyes. She panted, heat building as he tenderly rubbed over that spot, her thighs starting to tremble, aching and wet for him. She licked her lips, resisting the distraction. She sat up straighter, gasping and hissing in a breath as he quirked an eyebrow and gave a tight little thrust against her lips, the jarring ache winding her up tight. She swallowed, frowning at him, saying sternly, " _Do you trust_ that I have thought of everything. Of how this plays out?"

"I trust you believe you have thought of everything," Elijah panted, his voice strained as he pumped his hips subtly against her, making her eyes roll at the sensation.

" _Elijah_." He stopped, and she shook her shoulders, trying to quell the heavy ache unfurling in her breasts, the pit of her stomach. "Do you trust that I will do _anything_ to protect my friends, and bring your family back together? No matter how long it takes?" She shifted her hips so he couldn't keep teasing her, trying to distract her from the conversation they had both known was coming, the one they didn't want to have, it was too unbearable. They both knew what she meant, and there was nothing he could do about it.

"I trust you," he panted.

"And do you _promise me_ ," she said urgently, untangling their fingers and placing his hands on her breasts with a groan, resting her forehead against his for a moment as she held his cupped hands to her breasts, her pierced nipple throbbing against his sword-calloused palm, "that no matter what happens to me, you will honour our plan? You'll honour your promise to me."

He hissed, winced, tried to glance away; she didn't let him, and he clenched his jaw, angled his hips, and gave a sharp thrust as he used his hands on her breasts to push her down. She gasped, arching her back, and her eyes slid closed, panting. He bit down on her earlobe, panting, " _I promise_." She gave a breathless grin, and wrapped herself around him; he flipped her to her back, and she arched as he pumped into her hard, once – she pushed against his shoulders so he sat back on his knees, bit her lip and brought her legs up, crossing her ankles behind his head, groaning as explosions went off inside her with each subtle thrust he kept giving her as she moved, propping her ass against his thighs for a punishingly exquisite angle, leaning tight over her with his arms clasped around her head so she was stretched, every sensation magnified, receiving his aching thrusts, feeling it in her toes, in her teeth, the tips of her hair, glad of the burning sage Sheila had protected them with, panting and clinging to Elijah as he gasped and pumped into her, her hands clasped on his muscular ass, shivering as he bit her pierced nipple, tonguing her little ring, pushing himself up on straight arms to thrust and grind his hips into her, hard and unforgiving, staring into her eyes as she squirmed and panted, coming in a wet rush so hard the world glittered in front of her eyes. He grunted, unhooking her ankles from behind his head, shoved her to her side, lifted her hips as she scrambled to her hands and echoed her anguished cry as he shoved deep into her in one carrying thrust that she felt in her throat.

He was punishing her for what they both knew she was saying. She grinned to herself, crying out as he fucked her harder and harder, merciless, upset, channelling everything he was feeling, pouring it all into her the only way he knew how. Propped on her front half against the pillows, she gasped and bit into the pillows, whimpering, as he thrust into her, her thighs spread far as they would go, a pillow stuffed under her hips to raise them so he kept hitting that spot over and over, punishing her, not letting her come until she was shaking violently, breathless; he pinched her nipple and bit her shoulder, making her shudder with sensation, his fingers devastating on her clit as she sobbed and arched her back and bit into the pillow in her arms.

She let out a hollow, bereft gasp, tears welling in her eyes, when he whipped out of her, gasping. Then he grabbed her by her waist, hauling her to her back, looming over her as he grabbed her thighs, kneeling between her, and thrust back into her, making her gasp and sigh with relief, clenching around him so he hissed and thrust harder through her shuddering orgasm. He propped her knees up, fucked her through her orgasm, and when she cried out, overwhelmed, he pulled out, descending to gentle her with kisses and licks, suckling, massaging her shaking thighs; she mewled, grasping her own breasts, and rolled her hips to him, panting for breath. When she had gentled, he gasped, panting, wiped his mouth and trailed kisses up to her navel, her breasts, tugging her nipples with his teeth, laving them with licks and kisses, and he settled into the cradle of her hips, her thighs still shaking, torsos pressed together, her nipples tickled by his chest-hair, he raised himself on his elbows and bit her lip as he pushed into her, both of them breathless at the raw sensation, gazing into each other's eyes. She wrapped her hands loosely around his waist, and leaned up to press kisses against his lips, until he groaned, tongue delving between her lips, savouring, in time with the leisurely pace of his hips.

"I promise," he grunted, gasping as he came, shuddering over her. Giulia nodded, wiping her face, and wound her arms around his neck, drawing him close. He exhaled harshly, burying his face in her chest, pressing his forehead hard, his fingers clenched into fists at her waist, as he gently withdrew, angling his body so he didn't crush her, reaching down to pull the covers over their legs, but he licked and bit and suckled her pierced nipple, savouring, as his fingers relaxed her to the point where she was boneless. He nuzzled her breast, sighed, and groaned, before she shivered, coming, and drifted to sleep, her fingers threaded through her dark hair.

They both knew what was coming. They were a team, now. And tonight was her permission; he wouldn't stop her. He would honour his promise to her. Her plan was everything. If she sounded confident in it, she was; she had to believe it would all work out the way she thought it would. There was only one uncertainty, to her, but it was that that had allowed her to refine her plan. He didn't know what her plan was, he didn't need to; all he had to do was have faith in her.

And he did.

He had faith that Giulia would do what it took to remove the silver-dagger from his heart after he allowed Klaus to plunge it there. No matter how long it took. And he had faith that Giulia would _not_ sit out on her own life while she did.

She was human; he would never allow her to sacrifice her own life to give him his. Or his siblings theirs. She had a certain number of years; they had eternity.

But she knew he was making contingencies; even if he couldn't be around, there was someone he did trust to keep an eye on her. Two eyes, as often as he deigned to spare them: he had been making private phone-calls to Kol. He now knew the same truth Giulia had unveiled for Elijah in that cave. And he agreed with _Giulia_. He had called _Giulia_ , sharing ideas. He had only spent a thousand years wondering how most creatively to punish Niklaus for his crimes against their family; now he knew they were even more deserved.

She got updates from the others: she no longer attended Mystic Falls High and relied on them to feed her information. She was surprised when even Bonnie texted her, to let her know she thought Ric had been protected by another witch to make his human body more durable. None of them let on, but according to Jenna, knowing what was going to happen made it incredibly obvious, spotting the flaws and differences. It also made it easier to foil Klaus' plan.

He had body-snatched Ric, wearing him like a suit so he could wander the halls of the school, learn their secrets without detection, plant seeds of doubt and rupture their bonds from the inside. The problem was, they had anticipated it: Jenna made out like they had had a huge fight at Giulia's dinner-party, about Ric's continued association with Isobel. Klaus knew they had been unsuccessful in daggering Elijah that night; John confirmed that Hayley was in fact one of Klaus' spies. She had given a silver-dagger to Dr Martin, and been ordered to do what she had to do to seduce the younger one, Luca, to their line of thinking when he proved hesitant to betray their alliance with Elijah.

And that was becoming easier, as Giulia learned indirectly from overhearing a phone-call between Elijah and Dr Martin that he and Luca had again been unsuccessful in finding the area where, centuries ago, at least one hundred witches – or innocent young women in the wrong place at the wrong time – had been chained together and burned to death.

That very same place where Emily Bennett had been dragged in the middle of the night shortly after the fire destroyed Fell's Church.

Katerina had tied up her loose ends, but she hadn't counted on Damon trying to save Emily; or Jonathan Gilbert being distraught at Emily's execution, on the same ground where her sisters had been burned a century before.

Elijah turned to her, looking like he was stifling the urge to roll his eyes as he realised she had yet again been a few dozen steps ahead of him. He sighed, tucked his phone into his inside jacket-pocket and arched an eyebrow at her. She smiled sweetly.

"You know, Sheila's granddaughter Bonnie also sought to harness the power of those dead witches," he said mildly. "As soon as she stole that truth from Luca's mind, she had the Salvatore brothers searching to find the location of the witches' execution."

"Is that so?" Giulia said, raising her eyebrows.

"Mm. I'm afraid it'll be disappointment all around," Elijah said. "This would explain why Sheila has been able to do such powerful spells without drawing so very much from me."

"Well, you two don't know each other very well," Giulia said, "taking advantage of your body would just be _rude_!"

"Giulia."

"Yes, darling?" Giulia smiled. He sighed.

"You realise this will only compel Dr Martin and his son to more seriously consider Niklaus' offer of an alliance," Elijah sighed, looking uncomfortable. Giulia knew it wasn't that he would lose his allies; it was what he would be forced to do when the inevitable happened.

"I know," she said softly. "You could put them out of commission until it's all over." Elijah glanced at her, looking thoughtful, but he sighed and shook his head.

"Witches' codes dictate one cannot harm another – especially not for a vampire," Elijah sighed.

"Even to save their lives?"

"I anticipate that those who witness Niklaus' transformation will not live to tell about it," Elijah said softly. "Greta will die, by accident or design – to Niklaus, her life was forfeit the moment he set his sights on her… It…would be better for Dr Martin and his son that they died, knowing they had done all they could to protect Greta…rather than live to see how futile it was after all." He winced, raising a hand to clasp his forehead. Giulia set her glass down, sidling over to him, and rested her chin on his shoulder, wrapping her arms around his waist.

"People make their own choices," she said sadly. "Their decisions aren't on you. What the Martin witches do… You've done all you can do, you've been faithful to your promise, to them."

"I know," Elijah said softly.

She squeezed his middle. "So whatever happens, they understood the risk of their choice." Elijah stared out the window, holding his glass of wine, looking miserable. She cuddled him close, hurting for him – he knew what could possibly happen, and what he would be forced to do out of lack of any other option, influenced not by hatred or a desire to punish but by his own perspective of being a father bereft of his own daughter because of Klaus.

* * *

Something had happened the night of Giulia's dinner-party. Damon, Stefan, Elena and a couple of the other nonbelievers had realised how far ahead Giulia was, and they were unsettled to realise they should have been listening to _her_ all along. Jenna had always had Giulia's trust, from the first afternoon Giulia had let herself into the Gilbert house and dragged Jeremy out of bed; Giulia respected Sheila too much to take her for granted, and whatever she did for Giulia now would be repaid by her later. Giulia was prepared to do whatever she was asked to do. Ric was temporarily out of commission while Klaus used him to do reconnaissance of his own, not trusting what he could not hear with his own ears and compel with his own eyes. Jenna used their fake argument and her thesis as an excuse to distance herself from Ric, too busy, again leaving Klaus without a direct source of information. Because he was so far still trying to masquerade as Ric, he couldn't out himself by making threats. Elena carried on as she normally would, Stefan-longing, preparing for the Sixties dance Giulia was no longer going to attend, grounded until she pulled her GPA up to a more respectable place, the end of the semester approaching with daunting swiftness, and with it the next full-moon.

The 27th of May was the next full-moon, and selfishly Giulia wanted it all over before summer break – so her road-trip with Caroline wasn't affected! While Klaus played his little game, Giulia only had to wait; she had put everything in place she possibly could, and now she sort of felt like she could put her feet up, and not worry about a thing.

Klaus had his werewolf, the doppelgänger was waiting in the wings, he had his witches, and he'd make himself a vampire. He had to: she had protected the only ones in town – besides, one of them was his old best-bud, the only person alive he thought had actually, nearly a century ago, _liked_ him. So far, he was still playing his coy little game, hiding behind Alaric.

Her phone buzzed, and she glanced across the room at Elijah, sat at the piano with Firenze, the little whore, draped on his shoulders, purring, rubbing his face against Elijah's cheek, his tail flicking, as Elijah played. She sighed, set her highlighters down and accepted the call.

"Hey, Tyler."

" _Giulia – I messed up!_ "

"What's wrong?"

" _There was a car – it hit us! It's Matt – he was hurt real bad… I mean,_ real _bad_ …"

" _What?_!" she cried, tossing her books and things away.

" _We were with Caroline, she healed him, we took him back to her place, but when he woke up – he freaked_."

"What do you mean, freaked? Why?"

" _Caroline told him she's a vampire; he started talking about Vicki – he was_ so pissed! _Giulia, he thought Car had something to do with Vicki's death_. _But he had vervain in his system from The Grill so Car couldn't compel him to calm down, and he bolted_."

"You can't sniff him out?"

" _I'm still new at this_!" Tyler said reproachfully, and Giulia covered her face with her hand.

"Are you and Caroline okay?"

" _Pretty shaken, the car just came out of nowhere, drove straight for us at top-speed_ ," Tyler said, and he did still sound shaken. " _Car's on the B-Positive. I had half a bottle of tequila_."

"Okay, did Matt have his bracelet on? You know, the one I gave Car to give him?"

" _Yeah, Car compelled him never to take it off between doses of vervain_ ," Tyler said. " _He still had it on._ " Giulia sighed.

"Okay. Whose car did you crash?"

" _We were all in Matt's truck_ ," Tyler said. " _Car and_ _I moved it off the road – but he doesn't have insurance. And Caroline says the guy who hit us is dead – his licence says he lived in Richmond_."

"Okay, Tyler, listen to me – that crash I _doubt_ was an accident," Giulia said, glancing at Elijah, who had stopped playing, watching her with an intent frown. "Klaus needs a vampire."

There was a pause. " _Caroline fed him her blood to heal_ …"

"He's wearing my bracelet," Giulia said. "Even if he's killed with vampire-blood in her system, the spell on it will cancel it out."

" _Couldn't we get him one of those Gilbert rings_?" Tyler asked.

"They only work on death by the supernatural," Giulia said. "That's why Klaus compelled a driver from out of town to hit Matt in his truck, in case Matt had one of the rings."

" _Klaus did this to him_?"

"Doubt he counted on Caroline being in the truck, they're still kind of on the outs," Giulia said.

" _Oh, you didn't hear? I guess, how would you; we just literally left The Grill – I think they're…they were back together_ ," Tyler said. " _Before we got hit. There was a live band… Caroline went onstage and sang_."

"She did? I missed it?" Giulia said, disappointed.

" _Don't worry, I took a video on my phone_ ," Tyler said. " _She has a really pretty voice_." Giulia sensed disappointment in his voice, and pressed her lips together to prevent a smile; she knew the two had bonded, and she knew how easy it would be to fall in love with Caroline. She was exceptional. " _What do we do about Matt_?"

"Try and find him – _don't_ go on your own, okay? If you can…try to explain everything," Giulia sighed. "If she can't get him to calm down…have her compel him. For his own safety. And keep an eye on him. Without his truck he'll need some way to get around; invite him to stay at your house if you have to. Just don't leave him alone. Stick to him like Epoxy, no matter how pissed off he gets."

" _Got it_ ," Tyler sighed.

"There are only so many places a teenage boy can get to in Mystic Falls on foot late at night," Giulia said. "Did he just leave?"

" _Yeah, Car and I are gonna go see if we can find him_ ," Tyler said. " _I just…wanted to let you know what was happening_."

"Thanks for keeping me in the loop," Giulia sighed heavily. "Keep your nose to the ground."

" _Ha-ha_ ," Tyler said, hanging up. She put her phone down, riled up, and glared across the room.

"Your brother is a dick."

"I know," Elijah sighed, turning back to the piano. She groaned, scrubbing her face with her hands roughly.

"That's it, I'm going to bed," she grumbled. "You have fun staying up late with the little slut."

"Don't talk about my best-friend like that," Elijah gasped softly, covering Firenze's ears with his hand, tickling them before he shot her a playful smile. "You're only jealous." Giulia shrugged, it was true; Elijah was Firenze's favourite now. "What do you intend to do about Matthew Donovan? If Caroline cannot convince or compel him…"

"I'll think it over while I sleep," she grumbled. She picked up her phone and trudged upstairs, getting ready for bed, her head hurting. Elijah followed, giving her a scalp-massage and Tylenol to help, and she fell into a deep sleep.

She grumbled and groaned, covering her head with her pillow as something buzzed annoyingly by her ear. She grabbed around, Elijah's arm heavy over her waist, and peeked blearily at her phone-screen. She rolled onto her back, Elijah rousing beside her long enough to peek at her body preening luxuriously beside him in the cosy warmth of the bed, nuzzling and pressing a kiss to her neck before he smiled, sleepy and sweet and cheeky, and trailed his hand between her thighs. She bit her lip, and shivered as she accepted the call.

"Hello?" she sighed.

" _Please tell me you're not having crazy morning-sex or something_ ," Caroline blurted. Giulia chuckled sleepily.

"You know how much I love breakfast," she sighed.

" _Ew. Can you come and meet us_?"

"Us who? Where?"

" _Us – me and Tyler… We found Matt, but…I think we're gonna need you on this_ ," Caroline said solemnly. " _We're at the donut-shop_." Giulia gritted her teeth, shivering, and Elijah laughed silently as he worked on her.

"Alright, give me an hour. Just have a hot one ready for me," Giulia sighed, hanging up the phone to Caroline's disgusted noise, and Elijah grinned mischievously, disappearing under the covers, tickling and teasing her, making her laugh, and groan, and her thighs shake. He gave her a delicate kiss against the inside of her knee, smirking, as he resurfaced, chuckling.

"You are evil," she sighed contentedly, smiling.

"And you have to get ready," Elijah said, relaxing back in the sheets, hands behind his head. "Your friends are waiting for you, you'll be late."

"You're such a tease," Giulia grumbled, as she wandered over to the bathroom, piling her hair up to climb into the shower. Fifteen minutes later, she was scratching Firenze's ears as he stopped her at the front-door, purring at her ankles. "Did Elijah compel you to show me some love? Or are you just feeling guilty for ignoring your _mamma_?" She sighed, reaching down to show him some love, little though he deserved it, and told him to look after Elijah, before slipping out the door.

"I'm here. Where's my donut?" Giulia asked, dumping her bag on the seat beside Tyler. Caroline sat blocking a stricken-looking Matt into the other side of the booth. Matt, pale in the face, glanced over at her, as Tyler shoved a box of fresh, custom donuts in front of her, with a steaming coffee chock full of sugar. She liked hers dark, strong and sweet. She opened the box of donuts and inhaled the scent of warm doughy goodness, eyeing the variety of toppings – Car always bought a dozen specialty donuts: blackberry cobbler, Caramel Bliss, Carnival, Chocolate-covered Strawberry, Morning Buzz, Smores, Strawberry shortcake. Her mom was a cop, after all!

"Matt, are you okay?" she asked earnestly, glancing across the table. He looked like he was barely holding it together, simmering with anger. _She_ could feel it, let alone Caroline and Tyler.

"I don't know," Matt said, his tone clipped.

"What have Car and Tyler explained?" she asked, breaking apart a sprinkles-loaded Carnival donut, popping the first warm chunk into her mouth.

"We…kind of explained about the Council and Stefan and the sacrifice and…and Vicki," Caroline said, ending on a soft, sad note. Giulia glanced at Matt, sipping her coffee.

"I see," she sighed. "They tell you that Damon turned your sister?"

"They told me he killed her at your Halloween party," Matt said tersely.

"Technically it was Damon's party; it's just my house," Giulia said. She sighed. "Car explained why Damon turned her?"

"Yeah, as a scapegoat," Matt glowered. Giulia nodded.

"And he killed my dad, because he got in the way," Giulia said quietly, holding Matt's eye, and said in a quiet, even tone, "So don't glare at me like I don't know how you're feeling right now." Matt blinked, stunned. She glanced at Caroline. "You didn't mention that?"

"There's a lot to cover," Caroline sighed. "I thought we should start with the sacrifice and Klaus, and why we were run off the road last night."

"Right," Giulia murmured.

It took a while, and she didn't think Matt was hearing a lot of what they said; he was too angry. He had just discovered his sister's murder had been covered up, by the very people who were supposed to protect the town. She didn't think Caroline or Tyler had even thought that Giulia was the one person who Matt could connect with: her father had been killed in cold blood, just as his sister had. It was that, possibly more than anything else the others said, that calmed Matt down. Understanding a little more about what was going on, the danger of things, the threat to _Elena_ , Matt's posture started to change, he seemed to be more alert, taking in more; he asked how Giulia could stand _them_. He…was afraid of Caroline, confused by what Tyler claimed to be; they had lost his trust in an instant. The more he learned, the sadder, more alone he felt, realising that all of his friends knew a secret they had kept him from learning, that his sister's death wasn't a cut-and-dry overdose, but a calculated murder, a plot to help Damon remain in Mystic Falls and ingratiate himself with a Council of close-minded bullies and entitled snobs still clinging to old-fashioned prejudices.

Caroline ask him; did he want to forget all of this? Was it too much for him to take in? Giulia told him, she didn't want him ruining his life over some overreaching attempt at revenge for Vicki. It wasn't the best thing to ask, but Giulia did make Matt seriously consider how better off he was, as awful as it was to think about, without Vicki – or his mother – in his life. He had always been a sweet guy, hard-working and responsible, he cared about his friends – he just had bad luck, and not a great start in life.

And Tyler stuck to his word to Giulia; he didn't leave Matt alone.

One way or another, Matt would have to think over what he had learned, and deal with it. They couldn't afford loose cannons, but telling him about the danger posed to Elena, to all of them, helped simmer down some of his rage at finding out Vicki had been killed by Damon. Whatever was going on in his head, that threat against Elena distracted him long enough that they could actually talk him through things. The danger _he_ was in, because of Klaus. And because they _did_ love him, having kept the secret from him to protect him – as Tyler said plainly, "there should be at least one person whose life isn't totally screwed up by all this supernatural crap" – they were going to keep close to him, even though he couldn't, for the moment, stand to be near them – distrusted and feared them.

They escorted Matt to Caroline's car, driving off for school, and Giulia sighed as she plucked her phone from her purse.

"Hey, love," she said softly, tired. "My morning was a great fat donut in a fetid puddle, how was yours?"

" _About the same_ ," Elijah answered, and Giulia was instantly on her guard.

"Where are you?"

" _Downtown_ ," Elijah said, and she knew where he meant. " _Can you meet me_?"

She heard the emotion in his voice, half-strangled. "Yes," she said softly, raising her hand to her forehead, closing her eyes. _Oh, no_ … "Hold on, love."

The Martins had rented a place on Lockwood Road, just off Main Street; the windows overlooked a corner of the square, and Giulia glanced up, seeing a shadow in one of them. She buzzed, and he let her in. She hurried up the stairs, to the third-floor, and her heart pounded as she approached the door. It was ajar, and she pushed it open hesitantly before peering inside. She saw a body on the floor, and further into the room, another. She stepped over the threshold, sighing sadly, and closed the door quietly behind her. Father and son lay on the carpet, Dr Martin face down, but his son staring glassy-eyed at the ceiling.

Elijah sat at the small table by the window, his face like marble, twiddling the silver-dagger in his fingers so the light flickered off each edge of the blade, red with his own blood. His cheekbones popped, chiselled, one of his tells; he gritted his teeth when he was under great stress, emotional upheaval he couldn't handle.

"Love," she whispered, approaching cautiously. His shoulders heaved, his eyes were hard and glassy, and blood had seeped through his expensive shirt, ruining his tie. Someone had stabbed him, three inches too far to the left. His lips moved as he bit them, and her presence seemed to trigger the visceral response he had internalised. He gave a shuddering gasp, raising a shaking hand to his eyes, tossing the dagger aside on the table. Giulia took the blankets from a hamper by the sofa and covered the two bodies, setting her purse down, and approached Elijah, sighing heartbrokenly. She didn't need to comment; they both knew what had happened. One of the Martin witches had tried to stab him, possibly while the other used magic against him; they had failed to stick him through the heart, and he had…killed them. The worst part was, they both knew it had been coming.

She climbed into his lap, legs dangling either side of the chair, cradling his face in her hands to force him to look her in the face. "Love – Elijah, look at me." He glanced up, his eyes sparkling in the sunlight.

They had seen the betrayal coming, but it was quite another thing to experience it – to feel that blade plunge into his chest, inches from his heart. To hear the snap of someone's neck echo off the walls, his father's or son's grief and terror as they knew what was coming.

She leaned in, pressing a tender kiss against his lips. He reached up, holding her waist, his hands shaking. He had killed Trevor five centuries after they had known each other; Slater was a stranger. But Elijah had spent time with the Martin witches; he had allied with them because he was drawn to their grief, sharing in it. And they had betrayed him; he had killed them. She wrapped her arms around him, holding him close, absorbing his grief, his jitteriness, his disappointment and self-hatred. She wished it wasn't on him. She leaned back, stroking his jaw with her thumb, gave him another kiss. He rubbed his palms against her hips, clutching her ass, stroking down her thighs, fidgety, distracted, _upset_.

"What do you need, love?" she asked gently. Elijah gave a shuddering breath, growled and grabbed her.

" _You_." His kiss was fierce, punishing; Giulia's hands flew to his belt, crying out with a gasp as his fingers sought between her thighs, finding no barrier, the weather too hot to wear anything but a dress; he bit her lip, his tongue delved, and she hissed, arching her back, reaching back to brace her hands on his knees, as he pushed into her in one unforgiving, relentless thrust. It was fierce and messy and spontaneous, and he needed it; he needed _her_ , and she gasped and accepted it, thrilled by his trust in her, to be vulnerable, to _need_ her, to want her more fiercely than he wanted almost anything else. She panted, collapsing in his arms as he grunted, coming with her, holding her close, head buried in her shoulder. She held him tight, shaking, and covered her face with her hand, overwhelmed, with him still inside her as he shook, holding her hair tight, panting. She sighed, gently rolling her hips, moaning breathlessly as she spasmed around him, and raised his face to hers, giving him fierce, lingering kisses as she threaded her fingers through his hair, peppering tiny kisses along his jaw, whispering in his ear, soothing things. He sniffed, raising his hands to cup her face, and gave her a tremulous smile before pressing a delicate kiss to her lips. He groaned, pulling out, and she sighed, reaching down to zip him back up, buckling his expensive belt. She had to take a moment before she stood, climbing out of his lap; he held her hand, and they gazed at the mess.

Two bodies, draped with blankets. A broken coffee-table. A splatter of Elijah's blood where the dagger had been withdrawn from his chest to try again. The everyday clutter of two men living alone, an academic's book-collection.

"I…thought perhaps your friend Professor Bennett would like the grimoires," he said softly. "There is a lot of history in those books."

"I'll handle the furniture and things," Giulia said quietly. She knew the rent was paid month-to-month; they had a couple of weeks until they had to get everything out. She would contract a mover to dispose of everything else, give the furniture to the charity that provided to battered women starting over with their families. "What do you want me to do with the bodies?"

Elijah shook his head, glancing at her. "This is mine. I will arrange their burial." Giulia gave him a sad look, leaning in to give him a kiss.

"Are you sure?" He nodded, licked his lips, glanced around with a shaken look on his face. He blinked and glanced at her.

"Did your friends find Matthew Donovan?" he asked.

"Yeah," she said gently. "He's simmered down, but they're not gonna let him out of their sight. He knows about Klaus; hearing about the danger Elena's in calmed him down some. I guess we'll just have to wait; if he decides he doesn't want to know all this, Caroline's offered to compel him..."

Elijah sighed, gazing out the window. "How wonderful…to be that _free_." He sighed heavily, his shoulders drooping; she went to the window, and he enveloped her in his arms, her back to his chest; he pressed a kiss against her neck, propped his chin on his shoulder, and they stood there for a little while, just watching the day go by.

Matt knew; the Martin witches were dead. Bonnie knew the magic from the execution-sight of the hundred witches had already been harnessed by someone else. Klaus was still strutting around in Ric's body. They wordlessly watched Hayley flirt with Mason on the sidewalk outside a cute little café, then make a hasty phone-call while he went to get them fresh coffees, her gaze flicking toward the apartment-building where they stood, watching her.

"It will be soon," Elijah said finally, on a heavy sigh.

"A couple of days," Giulia said quietly, swallowing.

"Are you nervous?" Elijah asked, tenderly kissing her ear, nibbling, kissing that spot right beneath her ear that made her shudder.

"There's only so much I can anticipate; some of it, even I have to go on faith. I'd be stupid not to be nervous," Giulia said softly. Elijah chuckled.

"You're the farthest thing from stupid," he said thoughtfully.

"Are you nervous?" Giulia asked. Elijah didn't answer for a while; he knew what she was asking.

"Not nervous," Elijah said quietly. He squeezed her waist. "More sorrowful." She frowned, and he saw it in her reflection. "I won't feel it; but you will."

"You won't?"

"Rebekah once told me, the longer you remain daggered…there comes this…awareness," Elijah said softly. "Locked inside your own mind." He sighed heavily. "I know how she suffered, from decades-long slumbers… My brothers and sisters have been daggered for centuries."

"You'll get through it," Giulia told him softly. "Together."

Elijah chuckled hollowly. "United in our desire to punish Niklaus."

"You let me worry about that," Giulia said, gazing through the window. Elijah squeezed her waist, hugging her to him. They had a few days before the full-moon. Everything would change; and Giulia was nervous.

Not because of the sacrifice, or of coming face-to-face with Klaus, or what she needed to do.

But because in a few days, they would be over. Her eyes burned, and she stifled emotion threatening to choke her, clutching at Elijah's hands. To do what was necessary, they had to sacrifice.

In a few days, he would be taken from her.

And she had to endure it, as long as it took.

* * *

 **A.N.** : More smut. God, I'm on a smut-roll recently! But I know you little nymphos love it. And I am a slave to my readers!


	40. A Proposal

**A.N.** : Hi everyone! So…a departure from canon… My fortieth chapter for Dangerous Beauty! That means _one hundred_ total Giulia chapters! Hope you like!

* * *

 **Dangerous Beauty**

 _40_

 _A Proposal_

* * *

After he had body-snatched Ric, expelling Klaus from Ric's body was easier than anticipated. Giulia gave him a few days, just to let Klaus saunter around thinking he was ahead of the game. The dozen texts Giulia had sent 'Ric' _reminding_ him that he and Sheila had both promised to sit with her and go through her thesis before she turned it in had possibly _annoyed_ Klaus into action: but the temptation of Giulia's presence – he knew exactly who she was and _what_ she was to Elijah – and the opportunity to kill one of only two witches in town who could help Elijah was enough to bring him to Sheila's porch.

He never even got to knock on the door.

Sheila was _good_. Subtle, powerful magic, she was unpredictable and well-prepared; she had discussed the plan with Giulia only. She and Bonnie had gotten into a huge fight even _Giulia_ had heard about; Sheila had called her, after the fight she had with her granddaughter, upset, rattled, but determined. Sheila would do what she had to, to protect Bonnie; she didn't want _Bonnie_ to be the one in her position. She believed Bonnie was too young, too unpractised – too petulant to use her powers well. She had already proven her friends couldn't trust Bonnie to use her magic wisely, to protect them; not disabling the Gilbert device had led to Caroline's death, and Sheila knew that. She didn't forgive her granddaughter for thinking she knew better.

The spell on her porch activated the moment Klaus stood on the doormat. He was, literally, and without warning, booted out of Ric's body, flung back to his own – with a hidden gem, a locator-spell tacked onto him to track where Klaus was, undetectable, but very useful.

Giulia had observed him enough in Elijah's memories, knew enough about his personality and tactics to know the plan would work faultlessly. Klaus was brash, arrogant and ostentatious – he had no appreciation for subtlety, for the fine details, he believed himself invincible. And he expected everyone with power to emulate his behaviour. To be like him; flashy, egotistical, cruel.

The most powerful magic was the most subtle.

And everyone knew: It was always the quiet ones.

Sheila was that quiet, unexpected woman.

And expelling Klaus from Ric's body was all in the preparation. She didn't have to talk to him; see him; reveal she had gone with Giulia to harness the power of a hundred-ish dead witches – so the Martin witches couldn't abuse it, so her granddaughter couldn't be pressured into using it. Tapping into magic like that wasn't for the ambitious, for the inexperienced: Sheila wanted nothing more than to protect her granddaughter. She was – _old_. Her life was her granddaughter and her teaching role at the university, gin-rummy night with her friends, book-club, chatting with her wacky mother on the phone while she made gumbo. And she knew better than to get involved in vampire business. She involved herself with Giulia because she knew the favours would be repaid; and Giulia was human, and determined to protect the people she cared about. Old loyalty meant Sheila's granddaughter was included under that umbrella of her protection.

Giulia had orchestrated everything so that only the barest minimum people were actually involved in the sacrifice. In her plan. Sheila respected Elijah's honourable reputation; she had been allowed to read him through direct contact too many times not to have gotten a good measure of him, and she trusted Giulia's instincts.

Sheila knew a little of her plan, enough to warn her against some of it, but she respected Giulia, and understood Elijah's position on a lot of things.

There was one thing that occurred that distracted them all long enough, in the most marvellous way, the final extraordinarily _wonderful_ thing to happen before the sacrifice, before everything would change.

Giulia was invited to family-night at the Gilbert house. She made a cake, and arrived after her last afternoon class, leaving Elijah home-alone to make phone-calls to Kol and play the piano. She was sure he was doing other things, things he didn't want her to know about until later, but she left him to it, trying not to dwell on the anxious twinge that flittered through her every time she thought about what was coming.

It wasn't even Klaus or the sacrifice that had her nervous.

She…didn't want to give up Elijah.

But she wouldn't allow his loss to cripple her. He wouldn't want her to; she had too many adventures in her future to let her life be ruined by grief, to be miserable she couldn't share it with him. There would be others: not the same, but still worthy of her time, her love.

"Am I talking to Ric-Ric or Klaus-Ric?" Giulia teased, and Ric rolled his eyes as he looped an arm around her shoulders in a hug.

"Hey," he said, smiling lazily, that earnest gleam in his eyes. "Good to know you're on top-form tonight. I hope you don't mind Chinese – we kinda burned the pizza."

"When he says 'we' Ric's just being very generous!" Jenna called from the kitchen, and Ric winked at her, taking the cake-tin and flowers and leading the way into the kitchen, where Jenna had poured a glass of wine for the two of them. She looked pissed off about something, but she beamed at Giulia when she strode in with Ric. Jenna's books were still spread out on the kitchen-table, her laptop open. "Hey! I'm glad you could make it! How were classes?"

"Okay," Giulia smiled. "I had to meet with my counsellor so we could discuss my transfer to NYU. And then I had a meeting with my accountant and financial-advisor. I think I scared them; I think they were expecting…"

"A seventeen-year-old girl," Jenna laughed.

"Yeah," Giulia sighed. "Anyway, how are you?"

"Well, I am in the _final_ proofread of my thesis," Jenna grinned. "God help me, I'm getting it printed and bound this weekend so I can hand it in _early_. All this supernatural drama has really helped me manage my time a little better. Having two kids and a boyfriend helps, too."

"I'll bet," Giulia said. She frowned at Jenna. "Are you okay? Where are Jeremy and Elena?"

"Jeremy is upstairs," Jenna said lightly. She took a breath, looking like she was controlling her anger. "Elena's somewhere with Stefan. I think they referenced a movie or the mall or something before they ran out the door. Last few days before the sacrifice, I guess; they're trying to get it all in before then."

"They're trying to get _something_ in," Giulia sniffed, crinkling her nose. "Well, I guess there's more Chinese food and fewer people for me to slaughter in _Clue_!"

"Why don't _you_ put that laptop away, far away from any water-sources or temperamental power-outlets," Ric said, giving Jenna a look, "and why don't _you_ go grab Jeremy for us; food should be here in a few minutes." Giulia grinned, darting into the hall; she flung herself up the stairs two at a time, bounding into Jeremy's room, and burst through the door.

She stopped, and gaped, delighted incredulity starting a laugh bubbling from the pit of her stomach; she gasped, and grinned.

" _Ashlyn_?"

A rumpled blonde gasped, flicked her hand so the covers swept over the two naked, writhing bodies; she glanced frantically at a red-faced Jeremy, and disappeared. There was no puff of smoke, but Jeremy yelped and landed on the mattress with an " _Oof_!" bouncing on his front.

Giulia laughed. She laughed, and laughed, and laughed. She was still laughing, tears streaming down her eyes, as she collapsed against the door, her phone buzzing; she was laughing too hard to actually breathe as Jeremy tumbled from the bed, sheets around his waist, to slam the bathroom door on her, mortified. She hiccoughed and giggled, sniffing, pushing the tears from her cheeks, and gurgled, "Hi, Ashlyn."

" _PLEASE DON'T TELL_!" Ashlyn pleaded frantically, and Giulia laughed.

"I can't – I can't – I can't even breathe!" she laughed. She laughed, resting her head back against the door.

" _We haven't told anyone we're dating, I haven't even told Cara I'm…_ "

"No longer in need of battery-operated devices," Giulia tsked tauntingly. "You saucy little trollop! Seducing Jeremy by astral-projection! That's kind of…kinky. Kinda _sexy_."

" _Please don't tell Elijah_ ," Ashlyn whispered. Giulia chuckled.

"I promise," she said softly. She glanced at the bathroom-door. "Poor boy; you've left Jeremy with blue-balls."

" _Giulia_!"

"Our dinner should arrive soon; you've got time to give him a good seeing to before we eat," Giulia teased. "You could even join us?"

" _I can't – I wouldn't be able to look you in the eye_."

She grimaced, a thought occurring. "Please tell me this wasn't your first time…"

" _No_ ," Ashlyn said softly. " _It wasn't_." Giulia let out a sigh, relieved.

"Well, good. And don't be embarrassed; I'm having sex with Elijah against every sturdy surface I can find, so…"

" _That is gross!_ " Ashlyn laughed.

"Come on, come back and get a leg over, Jeremy won't be able to _walk_ ," Giulia said, and burst out laughing again. "Oh, I am _never_ gonna let you or Jeremy forget this!"

" _Giulia! Come on_!" Ashlyn cried, but she was laughing. " _Please!_ "

"Oh, no, it's way too good," Giulia chuckled. "Alright, I'm gonna leave Jeremy's room, you two…sort out whatever you need to… Please don't let my interrupting scar you from ever having sex again."

" _Like you could!_ " Ashlyn laughed, and Giulia blushed this time, surprised.

" _Ashlyn_!" she gasped, grinning. "Alright, I'm going." She hung up the call, wrapped her knuckles against the bathroom door, and left the bedroom, closing the door behind her, laughing. She wiped her face and was still grinning as she entered the kitchen; Ric and Jenna gave her odd, funny looks.

"We heard you laughing," Jenna said, smiling. "What's so funny? What was Jeremy doing?"

"Um… Ashlyn," Giulia said, and Jenna's eyes popped, Ric's eyebrows rose.

"They were really up there…?"

"Guess it's Thrusty Thursday," Giulia shrugged, and Ric choked on his beer, darting over to the sink to spit it out, laughing, his shoulders shuddering.

"They were really…? That was _quiet_ ," Jenna said, raising her eyebrows, and Ric choked on a laugh by the sink.

"Ashlyn's a witch," Giulia said, shrugging. "Privacy spells." Jenna looked thoughtful, impressed. "Don't let on that I told you."

"Secret's safe with us," Ric grinned mischievously. The doorbell rang, and Ric strode off, calling for Jeremy. Jenna glanced at Giulia, who shrugged.

"I'm just happy…she's _alive_ ," she said quietly.

"Guess I know why Jeremy's been pushing that whole New York art-programme this summer," she smiled. Ric returned with bags of Chinese food from the delivery-guy and Jenna started to empty containers into nice dishes – not family-night protocol, so Giulia raised an eyebrow at her. She smiled, asking her to set the table, and Ric put on some music.

It was Chinese food and _Trivial Pursuit_ – girls against guys, popcorn on the coffee-table, a John Hughes movie on in the background – Jenna had never seen _Ferris Beuller's Day Off_ – laughing and teasing; Jeremy had appeared, flushed, and Jenna and Ric had exchanged a look while Giulia hid her face in the refrigerator, pulling out the bottle of plum sauce for the duck pancakes. There was never enough. She feasted on salt-and-pepper squid, shrimp chow mein, Peking duck pancakes, dumplings and spring-rolls, tossing popcorn back at Jeremy whenever he kept flicking it at her while the movie was on, she and Jenna thrashed the boys at Trivial Pursuit, and it was cute to see Jenna and Ric together as they played card-games. The only dampener on the evening was Elena's conspicuous absence, and Giulia knew Jenna was annoyed by it.

"Hey, uh, Jeremy, why don't you help me get the plates for cake," Ric said, and Jenna beamed at him as he passed, followed by Jeremy. Giulia yawned; she had had a late night, roused early, too, by Elijah, and things were consistently busy at school. Jenna put away the _Trivial Pursuit_ cards, tidied up the popcorn, and Giulia watched her, aware Ric and Jeremy were taking a long time to find four plates and a knife for the cake. Usually Jenna just rolled with it when Elena ran out of the house with Stefan at the last minute, ignoring or just forgetting plans they had made; it wasn't the first family-night Elena had skipped out on. Whatever was going on, Jeremy came back from the kitchen carrying a stack of plates, grinning from ear to ear; Ric gave Jenna a subtle wink, and Giulia watched them both warily.

"What's going on?" she asked, smiling. They were being weird. Jenna glanced from her to Ric, grinning too hard to actually answer.

"I've just asked Jeremy's approval…" Ric grinned, and Giulia sat up straighter, eyes widening. Ric glanced at Jenna, his expression so warm, so _consumed_ …

"We wanted all three of you here," Jenna said, smiling, her eyes glinting with tears. Breathlessly, she declared, "We've decided we want to get married."

Giulia's jaw dropped, she gasped. She hadn't expected that!

"Oh my god!" she gasped, delight spreading through her. " _Married_?! To each other."

"We'd prefer that, yeah," Ric chuckled.

"Wow," Giulia breathed, amazed. She couldn't stop smiling. " _Really_?"

"With everything going on, we just thought… Why the hell are we not throwing ourselves in headfirst?" Jenna said, beaming. "We don't want to waste our time together."

"That's amazing," Giulia said softly, her eyes burning. Something _good_ was happening. "You're getting _married_."

"Yeah," Jenna beamed. She had never looked prettier. Ric took something out of his pocket, going down on one knee to present a small black-velvet box to Jenna, who beamed, brushed a tear from her cheek and laughed shakily. Her engagement ring was a delicate little eternity-band of rose-gold set with tiny diamonds. It slipped perfectly onto her finger, and looked stunning with her strawberry-blonde colouring and fair skin. She sniffled, blinking tears away, and gave Ric a kiss.

"And… We wanted you to be the first people we told…because… Jeremy, I… I couldn't walk down the aisle without you," Jenna said, her hand clasped with Ric's as they sat together on the sofa. "There's no-one in my whole life I'd want to give me away… And, Giulia… You've _always_ been there for me, and for Jeremy and Elena. We wouldn't have survived the first few weeks after Miranda and Grayson died without you, not taking any bullshit from Jeremy when he wouldn't get out of bed." They all laughed, and Jeremy hugged Giulia, who felt warm and emotional, unable to stop smiling, or tears burning her eyes. "You always took the time to listen while I poured out my heart to you, overwhelmed. So there's no-one else I'd even think to ask to be one of my bridesmaids."

Giulia stared at her, overwhelmed.

" _Really_?" she sniffled.

"Yeah," Jenna beamed. "I'm going to ask Meredith to marry us, and…I want you and Elena to be my bridesmaids."

Giulia, overwhelmed, blinked tears away. " _Of course_ ," she said hoarsely. She sniffed. "When do you want to get married?"

"This weekend."

Giulia laughed. "What? _This_ weekend?" she grinned.

"Why not?" Jenna beamed. Giulia wiped her face.

"What do you want me to do?" she asked, and Jenna burst into tears, giving her a huge hug.

"You're the most unselfish person I have ever met," she sniffled into Giulia's shoulder, hugging her tight. "You know that?" She wiped her eyes as she let Giulia go.

"I've been married once before," Ric spoke up, his tone saddened. "We had a fairy-tale wedding; but _Jenna's_ never had one. Would you help me give this beautiful woman the wedding she deserves?"

"Of _course_ ," Giulia sniffled, wiping her eyes. She asked, "Can I recruit Caroline?"

"Oh, yeah," Jenna laughed. "I don't think there's an option not to!" Giulia laughed, and she gasped, grinning.

"What about your dress?" Giulia asked, grinning.

"I hadn't even thought about it," Jenna said. "I haven't even thought about anything, really."

"I know someone," Giulia beamed, excited. "Can I – call them?"

"Sure," Jenna laughed. "If they can help me find a dress in our budget by the weekend…"

Giulia glanced at her, saying quietly, "Don't worry about that."

Jenna glanced at her. "Giulia…"

"Let it be my way of…saying thank-you for hauling me back from the deep-end, too," Giulia said, and Jenna gave her a tearful smile. She pulled her little notebook out of her purse, and they all sat round, eating cake, listening to music for the First Dance, and writing down everything they needed.

Jenna had never had a wedding before. And Jeremy and Elena owed it to her to make it spectacular. Elena wasn't there; but Giulia was. And she couldn't sit still, she was so _happy_.

Giulia had her notes, and they set to work. She called Chocolat from the Gilbert living-room while Ric called Damon to let him know Jenna had said yes: he'd gone to Richmond with Ric before Klaus had body-snatched him to pick out an engagement-ring. Subtle was timeless, Damon had advised him; his great-granddaughters could wear Jenna's simple bands. Giulia sent photographs of Jenna and her measurements to Chocolat, while Jenna chatted on the phone with him, upstairs out of Ric's earshot.

She left the Gilbert house later that night, jittery and excited and overwhelmed with happiness – her own, Jenna and Ric's. Her mind tumbled with things they had to organise before the weekend: Chocolat was going to work nonstop to create the perfect gown, two bridesmaid-dresses, and a suit for Ric and Jeremy. Ric wanted barbecue; Jenna wanted Giulia's poached peaches with amaretto mascarpone-cream for dessert. Giulia had texted Kol for a selection of wedding-appropriate cocktails for a couple who loved white-wine, rosé and bourbon, which could be prepared beforehand. She had a list of Jenna's favourite flowers; they had organised the food; they would use Jenna's iPod for music; they weren't going to send out invitations because anyone they wanted to attend would drop everything to spend a couple hours to watch them get married.

Ric had been married before, done the long-engagement and lagging preparation thing, and he and Jenna wanted to be married _yesterday_. After the semester ended, and summer vacation started, Ric and Jenna would go on a honeymoon. But they wanted to get married just before sunset on Saturday, and Giulia called Damon as she drove home, for two reasons: to let him know he, Stefan and Rose had to start getting the house ready for a ceremony and reception in the gardens; and to ask him to use his miles (and compulsion) to book Ric and Jenna into an amazing suite at a gorgeous hotel in Richmond for their wedding-night as a surprise.

She was giddy when she tripped through the front-door; Elijah glanced up from the piano and arched an eyebrow at her grin.

"You look happy," he smiled.

"Ric and Jenna are getting married – _this weekend_!" she grinned. Elijah blinked, looking highly surprised. His expression softened, warmed.

"How wonderful," he said, smiling, and Giulia grinned as she strode over to him, grabbing him for a kiss.

"I'm so _excited_!" she grinned. "I – I have so much to _do_ , and it's for a _good thing_! Jenna asked me to be a maid's-bride. I've never been one before!"

Elijah chuckled.

"I think you mean a _bridesmaid_ ," he smiled warmly. "And why wouldn't she? You two are very close."

"Would you be my date?" Giulia asked, beaming at him. He chuckled, leaning up to give her a kiss.

"Of course," he said softly.

"There's…something else," Giulia said, not knowing how he would react.

"What?"

"Jeremy…wants to invite Ashlyn. As _his_ date," Giulia said. "I had to explain…about the situation. You not wanting her involved."

"She should be there," Elijah said softly, after a moment's consideration. "Jeremy Gilbert thinks enough of her that he wants her there for his aunt's wedding. Of course she shouldn't miss out; he shouldn't be disappointed." Giulia beamed, leaning down to give him a lingering kiss.

"I…also called Chocolat. Jenna's…never been married before, this is – a _huge_ deal!" she laughed, so excited. "I want to treat Jenna. She deserves to have the wedding…the dress…she's always wanted."

"You called Chocolat," Elijah smiled. "Oh dear. They'll be descending _en masse_ at the excuse to come to town, you realise that?"

"Well, as long as they're on their best wedding behaviour," Giulia smirked, and Elijah laughed.

"Be careful what you wish for," he chuckled. "I could tell you stories…"

"Please do," Giulia grinned.

"They're really getting married this weekend?" Elijah asked. Giulia nodded.

"I've offered the Boarding House for the ceremony and reception," she said, smiling. "Jenna wants Meredith to marry them; Elena and I are bridesmaids, Jeremy will give Jenna away. _Damon_ is best-man! As a surprise I've asked Damon to book a spectacular suite at an amazing hotel in Richmond, just for their wedding-night, and I've ordered a limousine to take them. We know what the food is going to be, the music – they're working on their first-dance song. I may recruit the earth-goddess Sheila to help make the gardens their prettiest. This is so…wonderful."

"It is," Elijah agreed, smiling gently. She gazed at him, beaming, and bit her lip shyly; he leaned in, giving her a tender kiss. Happy, they staggered to bed, kissing, stripping each other's clothes, and Giulia was still grinning when she curled up in his arms later, still giddy, still _happy_.

Jenna and Ric's wedding was an amazing thing to be able to look forward to.

* * *

"Okay, so can we talk about Elijah?" Caroline blurted, inhaling and sneezing, twitching. "God, this place _smells_."

"It's a flower-market, Caroline," Giulia laughed, "it's supposed to smell." She had piled into an immaculate Caroline's car before dawn with a giddy Jenna and a groggy Elena, to get to Richmond to the flower-market when it opened. They had a list of Jenna's favourite flowers and the hues Jenna wanted to incorporate into her wedding – pale peach, blush, frosted sage-green, flecks of sunflower-yellow, rose-gold – and were wandering around the vendors hawking their fresh flowers. Elena traipsed behind, a huge thundercloud darkening her face, looking like she wanted to be anywhere but here, sighing and bringing the mood down, fluttering her eyelashes and pouting for attention, like she wanted someone to ask her what was wrong. Giulia refused; Caroline caught her eye, and they silently agreed to ignore whatever was on Elena's mind; today was about Jenna. "Where's Jenna disappeared to?"

"She's over there, doing battle for roses. And don't try to distract me! Elijah! _Spill_!" Caroline ordered, glaring from buckets of Queen Anne's lace. Giulia shrugged, not knowing what to say, and gasped, homing in on dahlias the size of dinner-plates, the perfect hue of cream with a delicate peach blush. Caroline beamed. "They're _so_ pretty! And they match the colour-swatch almost exactly. You really know the guy who sent Jenna those sketches for a dress?"

"I do," Giulia smiled. After a half-hour phone-conversation with Jenna, Chocolat had sent her a half-dozen 'rough' sketches of some ideas for her wedding-gown: she had fallen instantly in love with the third sketch, and from there they rest of the details had fallen into place. "I told Jenna not to even think about money, and pick something spectacular."

"That's really sweet of you," Caroline smiled warmly, as Elena sighed heavily. Every time she did that, it grated Giulia's nerves, like someone crunching potato-chips in a quiet room. "To pay for her perfect dress."

"Well, she's been there for me in a lot of ways, recently," Giulia said quietly. "And Ric's right; it's not Jenna's fault he's been married before and had the fairytale-wedding. Jenna deserves to have the perfect day."

"I know," Caroline smiled. Giulia turned to the vendor, asking how long the dahlias would last if kept in the cool and dark, explaining the situation, and Jenna came over, gasping, eyes zooming to them, sighing admiringly over the flowers. Instead of flowers on the tables, Jenna wanted lanterns and candles, and Giulia had shown her around the gardens at the Boarding House; she wanted to get married under the blooming honeysuckle arbour in one of the walled gardens with a larger lawn. Stefan and Damon had been set to work with Jeremy and Tyler – and by extension _Matt_ , whom Tyler hadn't let out of his sight – stringing up white lights, hanging lanterns in the trees; so far there hadn't been casualties to boy or branch.

" _Please_ tell me about Elijah!" Caroline blurted, huffing exasperatedly. "I need you to distract me, okay; I can't keep thinking about Matt or my head's gonna explode!"

"Are we talking about the _fox_?" Jenna asked, grinning, glancing over her shoulder; she was looking at some beautiful peach peonies called 'Coral Sunset', still closed.

"Who?" Giulia grinned.

" _Elijah_!" Jenna laughed. "I wanna hear this, too."

"It's…really not anything worth talking about," Giulia said quietly. As giddy as she was that Jenna and Ric were getting married, and she had been asked to be a _bridesmaid_ , it was probably…the last lovely thing she would get to enjoy with Elijah. Days after their wedding was the full-moon; Giulia knew that so long as Elijah honoured his vow to her, they wouldn't see each other again, not for possibly a very long time.

It was something they both had to reconcile themselves to; but it was their choice. It was for the good of a lot of people involved.

"He's important to you," Jenna smiled. "I mean, don't you want to _gush_ about him sometimes? You know? And tell us about all the swoon-worthy things he does for you? Like, what's the best date you've ever been on; what's he _like_ when he's with you?"

"Yeah, does he ever _not_ wear a suit?" Caroline asked, giggling. "I mean, he pulls them off better than anybody I've ever seen—"

"True – he's like the _Victoria's Secret_ model equivalent for menswear," Jenna laughed, her eyes twinkling, and Caroline nodded eagerly.

"That charcoal-purple shirt he wore the other night? The cut, his _shoulders_ , those _arms_!" Caroline grinned, not seeing the appalled stare Elena gave her. But Giulia saw it. "He was even doing the _dishes_ in an Armani suit!"

"It was Ermengildo Zegna, actually," Giulia smirked, chuckling to herself. He either wore men's _haute couture_ , or he wore nothing.

"Kinda weird, isn't it?" Elena asked heavily. They glanced at her, Giulia taking a deep breath and sighing, knowing what was coming. "I mean, the fact that he's like a jillion years old."

"It doesn't seem to bother you that Stefan is a hundred and sixty-three years old," Giulia said softly, catching Caroline's eye. "But then, he _looks_ seventeen, not thirty-five."

"And how about the fact that he's tried to _kill me_ a couple times?" Elena asked, glaring at her. Giulia sighed heavily.

"We met a long time before anyone knew about you," Giulia said gently. "It's not about you."

"How can it _not_ be about me?" Elena blurted indignantly. "This creepy guy shows up after I'm kidnapped and you've been _shacking up_ with him? He tried to kidnap me."

"How do you think I found out where you were?" Giulia snapped, glaring at her. "Hm? I _sent_ Damon and Stefan the address to that house – who do you think told me where you were? That was _Elijah_."

"He _killed_ one of those vampires who came to get me," Elena pointed out, as if _she_ wasn't sleeping with a vampire who had literally ripped a woman to pieces, he had fed so hard on her. Giulia had never seen Elijah drink blood, it just…wasn't even worth mentioning; like a diabetic with insulin, he managed his condition because he had to. It wasn't the sum total of who he was, it did not define him or his life, his choices. He was who he was; he was Elijah. He just had to drink blood sometimes.

"And _I killed the other two_ ," Giulia said glacially, making Elena recoil, flushed at the anger in Giulia's tone. Of all of them, _Giulia_ alone had staked vampires – had gone into a vampires' nest, hunted werewolves, endured _torture_ , outsmarted Katerina and made sure Isobel couldn't be used to pour gasoline on the fire: She alone had killed vampires, werewolves. Caroline had killed one guy. Tyler had accidentally killed Sarah. But Giulia…twenty-five vampires in the tomb; more in the farmhouse; two werewolves; two vampires at Slater's. She had lost count. And they forgot.

"So you've been _seeing_ Elijah for a while, so it has _nothing_ to do with me," Elena cried, angry. "He's here, he wants to _kill_ me in a fiery sacrifice."

"Guys…" Jenna said gently, glancing between them. Caroline was watching carefully, her eyes widening the longer they kept hissing at each other.

Giulia sighed, aggravated. Again with the effing sacrifice. "Elena – you know I've made sure you'll survive, stop _bitching_ about it!" she snapped, and Elena blanched. Giulia rarely swore.

"And what about that dinner the other night, did you even _think_ how I'd feel when I saw him at the dinner-table?" Elena asked.

" _I didn't invite you_ ," Giulia said clearly, and Elena flushed, lowering her eyes. She said honestly, "I didn't want you there."

"Why not? So you could _torture_ John without me finding out; you know I'd _never_ allow that to happen," Elena hissed. Giulia laughed, stunned.

"Would you rather he have remained under Klaus' compulsion, being used to _hurt_ you? Spying on you, on all of us, not even aware he's doing it, unable to stop?"

Elena smirked, her defence when she knew she was in the wrong, saying tartly, "I'm just saying, I mean, you put Stefan and Damon in a lot of danger, inviting Elijah into their house–"

"It's _my_ house, it was _my_ home, until my dad was murdered because he tried to help Stefan protect _you_ from Damon," Giulia snapped, glaring. "You think I want you wandering around _my_ house, a constant reminder that you're the reason my dad's not there?" Caroline and Jenna shared a look as the colour leached from Elena's face, her eyes filling with tears, which only annoyed Giulia more; Caroline took Jenna's hand, and frog-marched Jenna toward another vendor, leaving them to it. Giulia watched them go, stony-faced.

She took a deep breath, hands in her jacket-pockets, stifling her embarrassment that they had been forced to flee. This wasn't supposed to be about them, about _Elena_ – what gave her the right to bitch about Elijah, Giulia's relationship, to sour things? She kept her eyes on Jenna and Caroline's retreating backs as Elena glowered at her, pouting.

"We were having a nice conversation just now," Giulia said softly, her eyes lancing to Elena. "But you had to ruin it, you had to make it about you, you had to be a little _bitch_. This was supposed to be about Jenna. About us helping her pick out her flowers for her _wedding_. She gave up her whole life for you and for Jeremy. You've been a miserable _cow_ all morning. You couldn't even be bothered to be home the one evening Jenna asked you to be there; you _missed_ Jenna and Ric telling us they're getting _married_ … But I guess Jenna's used to it." Giulia sighed, shaking her head. "I don't know _how_ you can take your family for granted as often as you do."

"Tell me how you really feel," Elena said snarkily, looking insulted, hollow-cheeked. The level of her irritation over Elena's wheedling was almost irrational; something about her just pushed Giulia's buttons, she couldn't _stand_ how much Elena got away with, how she treated people – how she took it for granted that she had people like Jeremy, like _Jenna_. Giulia loathed her complete lack of accountability; she took responsibility for nothing, and saw no flaws in herself but always they were irredeemable in other people, they became the entirety of who that person was.

"You've challenged me to do that before; and I always will," Giulia said cold and very gentle. "Everything does not revolve around you and your _feelings_ … I don't care about the sacrifice; I made sure you'd survive because we used to be friends, and I owe it to Jeremy, and to Jenna, to do everything in my power to help you, because I love them. But I _don't_ think you're good for Stefan, and I hate that you're not doing anything to stop yourself being a wedge between him and Damon when they could really make something of their bond after hating each other so long. I think Damon deserves better than the way you treat him. I think Jeremy deserves a better sister; and Jenna…Jenna deserves the whole _world_ for sacrificing what she has to keep you in the lifestyle you were raised to expect. You'll survive the sacrifice; they all will. But it's time you _grow up_. Because people are gonna get bored of looking after you." Elena looked angry, upset, but angry, sniffling, glaring up at Giulia through her lashes; Giulia doubted anything she said would make an impression.

She sniffed softly, hooked her hair behind her ear, and frowned uninterestedly at Elena, taking in her weak chin, her quivering nostrils, the clench of her jaw, her lips pouting. She pulled a Kleenex out of the little packet in her purse.

"When you get home, you're going to go into your jewellery box and you're going to find your mother's vintage charm-bracelet she always wore, you're going to wrap it up in the teal-blue tissue-paper in the dresser in your living-room, and on Saturday, before she has her makeup done, you're going to give it to Jenna as her 'something borrowed'," Giulia said quietly. "Because Miranda should be here." She handed Elena the Kleenex. "Now you're going to wipe your face; this is all for _Jenna_. You're going to smile, and be happy, because this is a _wonderful_ thing for her. Wipe your face. And stop being a bitch about Elijah; you have no idea how hard his life has been... I'm going to go and find Jenna and Caroline; come join us when you've adjusted your attitude."

She hitched her purse higher up her shoulder, exhaled and shook her hands out, still irritated, as she made her way around the flower-market. She caught up with Jenna and Caroline, who glanced up and widened her eyes at Giulia tellingly before she could join them.

"Jenna…" she said softly, genuinely contrite she and Elena had argued, this morning of all times. She should have bitch-slapped her in the China Room the night she and Stefan had crashed her dinner… No, she should have addressed things months ago. "I'm am sorry, about…telling Elena off… This morning was supposed to be about you."

Jenna gave her a tremulous smile, her eyes glassy. "I know you have your issues with Elena… But I think this…her mood, picking on you…is more about her issues with me and Ric."

"What?" Giulia blurted, the very thought absurd. Jenna sniffled, and Caroline patted her shoulder gently, giving Giulia a solemn look.

"She's…just been so quiet and upset since we told her," Jenna said, trying not to start crying, obviously upset. "I keep thinking that it's the sacrifice, that it's all too much, but then I wonder if she's not _okay_ with it, and – it's the only thing that has felt _right_ , you know? One-hundred percent. If he asked me again now I'd still say yes in a heartbeat. Jeremy's thrilled, but… Elena, she just…smiles and leaves the room if we start talking about the wedding. Maybe she thinks we shouldn't be doing it, not now, that it's too soon, or that I should be looking after her and Jeremy and worrying about the sacrifice and not picking out _shoes_ …"

"It's not her decision," Giulia said earnestly, mortified that Jenna was so upset, had these worries – that Elena's behaviour had her second-guessing herself. "This is about you and Alaric."

"And Elena's gonna be off at college in a couple years, anyway, you know?" Caroline said gently. "You're gonna waste _two years_? With everything that's going on? I…I think it's _amazing_ that you two are doing this, you know, just grabbing life with both hands. I think it's _brave_. And she should be ashamed she's making you this upset about something so _amazing_."

Giulia was surprised Caroline had said it; but it was honest, it was gentle, it was the right thing to say, and Giulia looked at her suddenly adult best-friend. The Mean Girl in Caroline had died a death the night she transformed into a vampire; in front of her stood a devoted, earnest friend, an amazing young-woman who was driven, hard-working and caring, _wise_. It made Giulia's skin crawl at the immaturity Elena somehow drew out of her; she didn't like or understand how she got Giulia so riled up, pushed her buttons. She could forgive Elena for being spoiled, taking no responsibility for anything; she had been raised by two wonderful parents who had done everything for her. Of course she would expect others to look after her. But Giulia couldn't forgive her for upsetting Jenna.

Jenna sniffed, sighed shakily, and wiped her eyes, smiling.

"You know we won't let you get cold feet about this," Giulia said softly. "This is your _future_. You and Ric are too happy together; and you _deserve_ each other. That's rare."

"Yeah, and we've already ordered the cake and hired the tables and crockery, so…" Caroline said, and Jenna laughed, wiping her eyes.

"Thanks, girls," she said, her eyes bright. She glanced at Giulia, uncomfortable and ashamed of bitching out Elena – not for saying what she had, but for saying it in front of Jenna, and this morning, of all places to have it out with her. "And what Elena said…all that stuff about Elijah… I want you to know that I don't hold it against him, all this sacrifice stuff; what he told me… Let's just say I'd be doing the same thing if I were in his shoes…"

"You… You're not upset that I'm…that we're together?" Giulia asked quietly. Jenna's opinion, she did value; she was down-to-earth and had her head on straight. She wasn't afraid to tell it like it was, and was feisty enough not to back down in an argument, especially when she was right. The old saying was, sometimes it was better to be kind than right. Too often in Elena's life, people had been _kind_. She needed someone to be _right_ for once – and to hear it.

Jenna sighed heavily, observing Giulia's face. "Over the last…nine months…I have seen you at your _worst_. When you were _struggling_ , and you had no-one, and you didn't know what to do with yourself, and I wasn't your parent. I'm not your guardian; I could only be your friend," Jenna said, her lips trembling, her eyes sparkling. "All I could do was be there, and listen to _Jeremy_ when he was upset because you were struggling so badly and he didn't know how to help you, because _you_ didn't know what you needed. But you know what…I saw you getting better. I could see it, every day, you started doing things for _you_ , you started…being _happy_ , you started making all these amazing decisions for yourself, about your future… You've come out of your shell and you've _transformed_ … And that was when Elijah appeared in your life. I didn't know it, then. But…it was. So if he makes you happy, if he's part of the reason you, as yourself, this amazing, unselfish, vibrant person in front of me, if he's part of the reason you're like you are now… Then I think he must be pretty extraordinary. He'd have to be, for you to love him; you'd get bored too easily otherwise." Caroline and Giulia both laughed, as Jenna smiled and sniffed, wiping tears from her chin.

"You really think that?" Giulia whispered.

"I do. And I would _never_ discourage you from…from experiencing _love_ , not the way I can see it so obviously between you…" Jenna beamed tearfully at her. "I could see it, the night of your dinner; you have this tremendous mutual respect. He's as infatuated with you as you are him. And he appreciates just how privileged he is to have you in his life…because you're pretty spectacular, Giulia."

Giulia's lips trembled, her eyes burning, and she mumbled, "Now you're making me feel really bad about bitching out Elena."

"You two are just too different," Jenna said softly. "It's okay that you're not friends anymore."

"I don't want it to make anything awkward," Giulia said earnestly, glancing up. "I don't want to upset you because we can't see eye-to-eye."

"You won't," Jenna smiled.

"And don't worry; I'll talk to Elena," Caroline said, with a determined look on her face. Giulia grimaced guiltily; she felt bad, for her devolution. She couldn't understand why she had let Elena get to her; that she had snapped, and behaved so immaturely. She had seen Elena moping, glaring at them behind their backs, pouting, building herself up to pick an argument. Giulia hoped Elena's mood had everything to do with her and Elijah, and not with Jenna getting married; she didn't want such an amazing thing being ruined by one little brat.

Caroline's car wouldn't stop smelling like fresh cut flowers for weeks. Jenna had a morning class, but Giulia had a free day, so while they dropped Jenna off at campus, Giulia dashed off to hand in an assignment while Caroline bought coffees for them and Elena pouted in the car; Giulia suspected Caroline had had a word by the time she got back, thesis handed in, bound and ready for grading. The entire car smelled like a bottle of perfume; dahlias of all sizes and different pink, blush and red hues, white Oriental anemones, unopened white, blood-red and coral peonies, ranunculus in golden, orange and coral-pink hues, different kinds of roses in blush and very soft fuchsia, fluffy white chrysanthemums, proteas, white sweet-peas and lots of greenery in romantic hues like eggplant and frosted sage, glossy forest-greens and spring-green berries, eucalyptus and delicate, feathery ferns. All bundled into brown-paper and piled high in the trunk, in the spare seats, in their laps.

Rose, who had experience with floristry, had offered to put together the bouquets and arrangements, and it was perfect for them; the girls carried the flowers down into the basement in buckets, keeping them watered and in the cool to prevent them from opening and wilting too soon. Caroline and Elena had to get to school, but Giulia stayed at the Boarding House to get a head-start on the food: Ric had ordered barbecue in from the best place in town – also, ironically, the cheapest – and they would deliver the cooked food hot on the day. She'd bought a crate of peaches and spent the morning preparing them. The bedrooms having been cleaned and the sheets changed for the arrival of Ric's parents on Friday evening, Rose put Damon to work tidying the gardens. There wasn't much to do; ever since Elijah had given her the daylight-ring, Rose had taken trowel in hand and spent most of her time in the blazing sun in the walled-gardens. Giulia didn't think the novelty would wear off for centuries. And Giulia was more than happy to let Rose earn her keep at the Boarding House by acting as unofficial gardener. She put in more hard-work in one afternoon than Mrs Lockwood's team of contracted landscapers did in a week.

It was lucky Giulia and Caroline had spent so much of their high-school career working with local councils and societies, junior-representatives on committees and all of that; when they needed to, they knew who to contact to hire tables, linens, cutlery and crockery, even table decorations, the huge tent and a beautiful dance-floor to go inside it, around which the tables would be arranged, the pop-up bar where six Jenna and Ric-themed cocktails, made using Kol's recipes, were going to be provided, with champagne at Damon's expense and homemade lemonade and sodas for the underage guests. Jenna had thought to order cute little vanilla cupcakes for those guests who were fussy and didn't like the peaches, but it was _their_ day: advice from her friends, from Liz and Carol and Meredith, convinced Jenna to stop worrying about what other people would like.

It was about her and Ric.

And everyone else had to pull together, set differences aside, and do everything they could to make sure their day was perfect.

* * *

 **A.N.** : Everyone has that one person who bugs the hell out of them, don't they? I can see Elena being a brat because she doesn't know how to handle feeling guilty about not being there the night Jenna and Ric wanted to announce they were getting married, and then pouting because Giulia and Caroline start helping Jenna with everything and she always lets other people to everything for her… I really don't like her!


	41. We Are Gathered Here

**A.N.** : I'm back! After a long-weekend at a vintage festival, I have conditioned the backcombing and pin-curls out of my hair and am happy to say I have a few chapters to treat you to. I have also fallen in love with an orchestra that plays 1920s and '30s music – look up Alex Mendham and his orchestra, they're amazing!

* * *

 **Dangerous Beauty**

 _41_

 _We Are Gathered Here_

* * *

"Weddings! I love weddings! Drinks all around!"

Giulia watched on, amused, as a vivacious blonde spilled, with a hiccough, out of the limousine, champagne-glass in-hand, channelling Patsy. Pouring out after her, stepping around her as if she wasn't sprawled face first on the driveway, were Vera, Ashlyn, Aljaž and, finally, Chocolat, his pink eyelashes fluttering in teh breeze.

"'Sup, sugar?" he smirked, kissing both cheeks. "Nice digs."

"Keeps Stefan and Damon off the street," Giulia shrugged. "Far too _Wuthering Heights_ for me." They exchanged greetings and pulled weekend bags and champagne garment-boxes from the trunk. "Thank you for coming."

"Please! Any excuse for a road-trip?!" Cara chirped, giving Giulia a loud, wet kiss on her neck. "What up, luscious?"

"Not much, just pining for you," Giulia said smiling. "Do you guys want to come in? I'll show you where you're sleeping; I'm afraid Cara and Vera, you have to share. Ric's parents arrive from Florida first thing Saturday morning, and they're staying here."

"What do they know?" Chocolat asked.

"That their son's in love," Giulia said. "No clue about the supernatural, no idea their son's a quasi-retired vampire-hunter; they already like Jenna on principal because Ric loves her, and she's not Isobel." Chocolat pulled a thoughtful face.

"So where's my blushin' bride?" he asked.

"School; she has a morning class," Giulia said. "I told her you'd be here and to come over to be fitted. But I've got an exam this afternoon…"

"Don't worry, we'll look after her," Chocolat grinned.

"Come on; I'll give you the tour," Giulia said, gesturing everyone inside. She left the front-door open, the house airy but warmer than usual. She got everyone settled, and Ashlyn came in the car with her to Richmond to look around the university while Giulia took her exam. She had an iced tea lemonade waiting for her in the quad, and they discussed Giulia's exam and what she'd been studying; she stepped by the student-union and some of the dorms to find out if there were any parties or socials she didn't know about, a fuster-cluck of vampires in town, she didntw ant anyone lapping up from the local tap, and end-of-semester, post-exam ragers were the perfect diversion.

Giulia had her chores to complete; and while she traipsed around the Grove Hill mall for accessories and shoes with Caroline, Elena and Meredith, Ashlyn spent some time with Elijah at Giulia's house.

Elijah had some things to tell her.

They had a food-court dinner, finalising plans for Friday-afternoon with Jenna's friends, and when Giulia got home, Ashlyn was in bed; Giulia knew she'd been very upset, because Elijah was, much as he tried not to show it. Giulia curled up in his lap on the sofa, and they sat quietly together while he drank a glass of wine, Giulia absently running her fingers through his hair.

Friday was a hectic day for Giulia, and for Jenna, with multiple deadlines and exams; Giulia gave Jenna a ride home, went home and changed, then drove over to the Boarding House. Cars piled around the circular driveway, a rarity, and Giulia followed the balloons around the house to the sweeping lawn that led to the walled-gardens where, tomorrow, Jenna and Ric would tie the knot.

Jenna's friends had organised a surprise bridal-shower. It was _Alice in Wonderland_ -themed, Jenna's favourite book when she was little – with a naughty lingerie-twist. Tipsy afternoon-tea with an array of custom cocktails provided by bartender Kol, salsa lessons provided by Aljaž, and, of course, games – this was Jenna, after all, and continuing the childhood-favourites theme, every table had one of Jenna's favourite games – _Clue_!, _Hungry Hippos_ , _Life_ , _Candyland_ and _Operation_ , and as a nod to Jenna's post notoriety, they each decorated shot-glasses as take-home gifts, and played a few rounds of bra-pong. They did DIY mani-pedis, Caroline's idea after remembering her and Giulia's time at the spa with fancy foot-soaks and cocktails in vintage tea-cups and petit-fours. They had all coordinated on some gifts, like the date-night jar; and contributing an _easy_ recipe (with their photograph, and a story when they had made the dish) that had been laminated and bound into a book for notoriously unskilled Jenna, with a white serving-platter all of the girls had signed, and several bottles of wine for each anniversary or holiday until their first anniversary.

The only time Jenna stopped grinning was to start crying as she unwrapped her gifts, the Date Night jar, the recipe-book, and a scrapbook Caroline had made with handwritten letters and photographs from Jenna's friends and loved-ones. Giulia had had a beautiful photograph of Ric and Jenna together at the Masquerade made into a jigsaw puzzle, and had everyone they knew sign a piece of the puzzle, with important dates for the couple added to the empty ones.

"So, I have to ask, have you actually been sleeping?" Jenna asked, flushed in the cheeks and beaming, her new-favourite rose-gold dress billowing gently in the breeze. "I know those are your petit-fours and fruit-pastilles and bonbons and chocolates!" Giulia laughed. Everyone had been commenting on the delicious food, the canapés and Kol's unusual, pretty cocktails, the afternoon-tea served on tiered stands.

"Actually, I didn't make them," she said, and pulled an envelope out of her purse. She handed it to Jenna, who blinked; she'd had a whole wedge of cards and gifts that she'd already opened, blushing at some, giggling madly at others, grinning mischievously at a few – the naughty dice and some other toys Giulia had tucked into the bag with her puzzle. Giulia took Jenna's cocktail so she could open the envelope, and pulled out a very elegant card, which Jenna grew quiet reading, her eyes watering.

" _Oh_ ," she whispered, looking tearful. She glanced up at Giulia. "That's – so _sweet_."

"Lovely, isn't he?" she said softly. As a gesture, to apologise for putting her family through all _his_ family's drama, Elijah had spent the last couple days preparing the afternoon tea – roast-beef and horseradish sandwiches, smoked salmon, dill and cream-cheese, cucumber, egg-mayo on homemade bread, petit-fours, homemade fruit-pastilles, chocolates, bonbons, mini-cakes and tarts, scones, homemade jam, cupcakes, the tantalising, temperamental and very popular French macarons. He had made it all, perfectly, delivered it all to the Boarding House for Rose and the others to keep cool until the party, before he was whisked away to Atlantic City.

Somehow, he and Chocolat had wrangled invitations to the night of complete debauchery for which Damon and Stefan had kidnapped Ric – and Jeremy. They had taken the limo Thursday-evening, and by the time all of the bridal-shower guests had gone home and probably removed their makeup and tucked themselves into bed, it still hadn't returned.

But Ric was apparently ready, first thing Saturday-morning, to pick his parents up from Richmond airport, and the soon-to-be-joined Somers-Saltzman clan had breakfast at their favourite diner downtown.

They all had their last-minute chores, but it had been decided early on that their friends were doing this for Ric and Jenna; they shouldn't have to stress out or worry about anything but Jenna fitting into her custom-made dress, and Ric not stepping on her toes during the first dance.

* * *

It was a team-effort, getting ready. While Jenna was treated to the works at the Boarding House by Vera, the Gilbert was backup Wedding HQ: Caroline had put herself in charge of doing their hair, determined Elena would not be immortalised in Jenna's wedding photos as the only one who had made no effort whatsoever. Giulia had her makeup done at the mall, and she had one last-minute chore before she headed over to the Boarding House: the cake.

A friend of Miranda Gilbert's since childhood, the owner of Filigree Bakery downtown had done a rush-job on a two-tier cake, decorated simply with sugar-paste blushing gardenias and dried pineapple flowers, and a few dozen cupcakes. As the wedding ceremony wasn't until late-afternoon after lunch, Giulia went to go and pick up the cake with her makeup done and her hair pinned up in curls under a cute teal hair-net for Vera to finish later.

The underside of her watch-face burned against her skin as she waited for Desiree to bring the boxed cake out, and as the little bell over the door tinkled, a warm breeze skittering over her skin and enhancing the scent of freshly-made croissants, she sighed softly to herself.

"La Bella Salvatore," a quiet, accented voice said. "We finally meet."

Giulia turned, staring down Klaus.

As his lips parted and he stared, aghast, at her, taking a hasty step backward in shock, she gave him a bored look, taking in his appearance. Unimpressed.

He had nothing to his eldest brother. Nothing even to Kol, who was attractive in an unconventional way.

Sartorially, Klaus the ever-feared was…a trustafarian. And it took one look to know he thought a lot of himself; he wore his arrogance like armour. _Bravado_ , she thought, remembering the sociopathic coward Klaus was not nearly as self-assured as he put so much effort into making other people believe he was.

He had his plans after the sacrifice.

She had hers.

"That was quite a nasty little trick you pulled," he said softly, smiling at her, seemingly recovered from his shock. But she had seen it, too clearly; he was _shocked_ , almost frightened by her. By her appearance: Elijah was right; Klaus had feared Lucrezia, and he remembered her face, so much so that her appearance set him off-guard.

"No nastier than body-snatching someone without their consent," Giulia said lightly. "Wearing Ric like a suit; don't you have _any_ class?"

"I'm afraid after spending so much time with Elijah, you're bound to find me rather…unsophisticated," Klaus said.

"That's not one of the words I'd use," Giulia mused, giving him a disdainful look. He looked younger than she'd seen in Elijah's memories; it was the short hair. She supposed he was attractive, unconventionally, but there was something about him, the way he was pouting evilly, that reminded her of… _monkeys_. He couldn't hold a candle to Willem, with whom he shared the same biological parents. The runt of Esther's litter, in so many ways. She had seen all of Elijah's siblings in his memories; Klaus, in her opinion, was the least-attractive. That had to add to his myriad issues.

"And here I wanted us to remain civil."

"You breached all laws of civility weeks ago, when you took John Gilbert; when you took over Ric's body; when you kidnapped Jules and Hayley and made them fight for the right to survive; when you compelled a father of four to kill Matt Donovan."

He looked shocked.

She couldn't reveal too much of what she knew of his plans, but she could tell him enough to unsettle him. She had guessed; she had anticipated every permutation, every back-up plan and contingency. She was counting on what he'd do, too in-tune with what he wanted – and why he needed it. And how he could have deluded himself that this was his solution.

"I think there are some things we need to settle," Klaus said, his expression dangerous.

"You're getting what you want," Giulia said, narrowing her eyes. "There's no need to be a brat about it."

"Let me be perfectly clear," Klaus said softly. "I have waited a thousand years to break this curse. I will do so in whatever fashion I choose."

"Let _me_ be perfectly clear," Giulia sighed lightly, "just because you possessed a teacher doesn't make you Lord Voldemort. Nobody's stopping you from breaking the spell, so enough with the lurking and the spies and threats. Just know that if you act out, I will make you wait."

"I think you underestimate how much I want this curse to be broken."

"Then behave yourself," Giulia said, smiling as Desiree appeared with a smaller cake-box full of cupcakes. "I anticipated just what you'd do to get your own way; the moonstone is my insurance that you'll remain on your best behaviour. Speaking of, you will not ruin this weekend; you will not make contact by any means until the twenty-seventh. I have plans for the summer, I'd rather all this was settled before school breaks up – but I'm not above holding the moonstone for that time, if you decided not to mind me."

Her phone beeped with a text from Chocolat: _SOS. Veil AWOL_. She tucked her phone into her pocket, thanked Desiree for the cakes, and glared pointedly from Klaus to the door as Desiree lifted the wedding-cake from the counter.

"Oh," Klaus blurted, darting forward looking petulant and scolded – the 'smacked arse face' as Cara would call it, to hold the door open for them.

Giulia didn't look back. Desiree helped her load the cakes into her car, and she drove over to the Boarding House. Chocolat met her in the foyer, and she put Klaus out of her mind. Surprisingly easy to do. He was…more intimidating in reputation than in the flesh; she'd found he pouted like a little boy who'd received a just spanking for misbehaviour, knowing he was in the wrong but throwing his dolly out of the pram just to make a scene and make everyone else look bad.

"I don't know how it happened, the veil an' my backup have gone missin'!" Chocolat said desperately.

"It's okay," Giulia said soothingly. "Help me get these into the larder, and I'll dig something out of the attic. How's Jenna?"

"So relaxed she's almost horizontal," Chocolat chuckled. "Wouldn't know she's gettin' hitched in six hours."

"And Ric?"

"Same," Chocolat smiled. "Cute couple; they're suited to each other."

"You wouldn't happen to know if Damon's finished his speech?" Giulia asked. Chocolat shrugged.

"No idea; get Caroline to chase him. She's a force of nature," Chocolat smiled. "We like her. Sweet girl."

"She is," Giulia smiled. She was glad she could introduce Caroline to Elijah's New York friends. There was something to say about people you surrounded yourself with, and if anything showed Elijah's true character, it was his friends. Caring, generous, eccentric, wonderful people; and other people saw that. Those who knew about the sacrifice got to see Elijah with his friends, his family; they saw him enjoying time with Kol, his brother, with Ashlyn, whom he had raised since infancy. And _she_ was a sweet girl people liked instantly. Anyone who thought he was a villain for using Elena realised he was doing what they would…if it was their siblings, their child in jeopardy. The parents – Liz, Carol, Sheila – recognised there wasn't anything they wouldn't do for their families, either.

Elijah was in that horrifying, heart-breaking position no parent ever wanted to be in; his child had been taken.

There was no excusing the sacrifice; Elijah agreed that kind of magic belonged to a bygone age.

But it wasn't the end, not for Elijah, or Elena. Things would happen – things _had_ to happen – to ensure the next millennium would not repeat the last.

The status quo needed to change.

Klaus couldn't know that lifting Esther's spell was exactly what Giulia wanted.

But not yet.

She climbed up to the attic, where she and Caroline had slowly but surely started going through her pack-rat ancestors' junk, and went to the section she had organised purely for clothes that needed sorting through, most of them needing a little TLC to restore them to their former glory, old wardrobes organised by decade – the 1950s represented the best because of Doll, with some fabulous dresses from the 1920s and a handful of gowns from the Thirties.

One box in particular she homed in on, and carried downstairs. Inside were folds of silk-organza and chiffon.

Her mother's wedding-dress and veil.

According to Damon, Giulia's mother had worn the vintage, long-sleeved, drop-waisted gown from the 1920s made in post-war Florence, made for Gianna's own grandmother. Her veil was an utterly romantic floor-length swathe of diaphanous silk-chiffon. Giulia had the diamond clips her dad had given Gianna on their wedding-day to fasten it in place, antiques his relatives had passed down.

Giulia gently lifted the airy veil, handing it to Jenna.

"My mother wore it on her wedding-day. Her grandmother had it made for her wedding in 1921," Giulia told her.

"Are you sure?" Jenna asked, gasping softly.

"If she knew how much you've looked after me, she'd want you to wear it, too," Giulia said. The veil was the last piece of the puzzle, the final touch. Chocolat was truly gifted, adjusting the veil without cutting it, stitches so tiny that he would pick out after Jenna had her photographs taken so it could go back in the box, once more loved but not ruined. In case Giulia ever wore it. Giulia hadn't known about the dress hidden in the attic, but she had seen the photographs of her parents' wedding in a tiny Florentine church, photographs of her mother looking…breathtakingly stunning, elegant. Timeless. Giulia had never taken the gown out of the box.

More and more, Giulia had been thinking about her mother, a woman whose name she knew, and knew had once existed because Giulia did, but knew nothing about. Who her mother was had died with her father; he'd rarely spoken about her, and it had made his ear so sad and guilty that _she_ was the reason he was so heart-sore that she hadn't liked to hear about her.

Giulia had no mother: but she had motherly figures in her life who tried to keep an eye on her, and for that Giulia knew, Gianna would be thankful. So she wouldn't mind Giulia giving her great-grandmother's veil to Jenna to wear on her wedding-day. _Something old_ …

Champagne was poured, photographs were taken, Jenna had her hair and makeup done' she held Miranda's rose-gold charm bracelet Elena had given her, reading the letter Jeremy had written her, and before they knew it, it was time to get dressed.

In Damon's airy bedroom, Jenna finally put on her gown for everyone to see; Chocolat hadn't even let Jenna see herself in a mirror. Mrs Saltzman, who'd fallen in love with Jenna during the day, cried: Giulia shared the kind of smile with Chocolat that his dress, and Jenna in it, deserved. She looked _divine_.

* * *

Caroline Forbes was a more formidable general than any Elijah had ever met. He knew she and Giulia had put a lot of hard-work into making the day what it was, but it was another thing to see them in action. While Giulia performed her duties as bridesmaid, Caroline kept everything they had planned running smoothly. There were to be no surprises; every accident had been planned for. Everyone had their part to play, a don Elijah watched Caroline as he escorted guests to their seats.

By the time every chair had been taken, someone turned on the music, gently filling the warm air fragrant with flowers. The sun was low in the sky, casting a rich golden glow to everything, and the groom appeared with his best-man. Dr Fell – tonight Meredith, in a burgundy dress and lipstick – stood beneath an arbour swaying with honeysuckle.

It was a perfect place for a ceremony, Giulia's walled gardens. Roses of every colour and clematis climbed the old red brick walls, peonies of every colour, more roses filling the flowerbeds, old apple- and fig-trees entwined with flowering clematis and honeysuckle; lupins and foxgloves, dahlias, many pretty, unnameable flowering plants and bushes showed off their petals, unusual purple poppies and gladioli, fragrant herbs, pretty grasses, fruit trees hinting at a large crop of peaches and plums, oranges and limes peeking through delicate flowers. It was perfect. One of Giulia's ancestors had obviously been inspired by English gardens of stately homes, some of the finest in the world, in Elijah's opinion, and Giulia took a lot of enjoyment from them; he knew Rosemary did, and in between her tasks arranging gifts on a table, ensuring guests had signed the guest-book and making sure everything in the gazebo was ready for the food when it arrived, Elijah smiled and watched her pluck a few obstinate weeds and flowers that had gone over, rubbing fresh herbs between her fingers to smell them, plucking a ripe orange for the young daughter of one of Jenna's friends.

There was no bride's side, no groom's side; the only people who had designated seats were Alaric Saltzman's parents. As Jenna's niece and nephew were in the ceremony, everyone else could sit where they wanted; Elijah had claimed the second row aisle-seat, with Ashlyn between him and Kol, and Chocolat making sure Cara behaved at the other end.

Suddenly it was time.

One tiny flower-girl toddled down the aisle, stopping to flirt and have a gurgled chat with someone she knew, before her mother coaxed her to the end, where she promptly upturned her cone of flower-petals with a devilish little sweet grin.

Then it was Giulia, and Elijah barely registered anything after her. The sun split through the trees as she strolled down the aisle, a relaxed bouquet of dahlias and peonies in her hands.

He had rarely seen her in anything but blacks, charcoal, red and purple, she looked _divine_ in them.

In blushing peachy-pink, she looked fresh, feminine, exquisite. A floor-length A-line dress of floaty chiffon, with an artfully-pleated bust that flowed into a single strap over one shoulder and across her back, the colour brought out the flush to her cheeks, highlighting her fair skin and the dramatic contrast to her dark hair, falling to her waist in relaxed curls, a half up 'do braided back and pinned with delicate golden-leaves combs.

The flush to her cheeks, her subtle makeup, the cut and movement of the fabric against her lovely hips, accentuating her tiny waist, her bust high in that dress, her hair curling to her waist, fragrant in the breeze, the sun behind her, hair glinting gold and lava and copper in the sun, the way she was beaming with excitement and joy…

He would remember her like this forever.

Young, beautiful, _happy_.

She gave him a subtle wink as she passed, playful, foxy, and he sighed and watched her pass, the way the fabric caressed her behind.

His attention was on her even as the bride made her way down the aisle, on her nephew's arm. Chocolat had turned her into a dream. Her gown was a very romantic, relaxed creation of subtle champagne-lace décolleté and long sleeves, and water-coloured chiffon in a hazy pattern of delicate sage-greens and subtle pastel-peach. Her veil flickered in the breeze, glowing around her to the ground, trailing after her, held in place by a delicate laurel of dainty white flowers, her strawberry-blonde hair shining and loosely-curled, her face alight with happiness.

He was there for Giulia, though, and after admiring the bride, his eyes never strayed from her. A rarity, she allowed emotion to show, absorbed by the ceremony, tearful at the personalised vows, her cheeks flushing with delight – and relief – as the tearful Jenna and Ric were finally allowed their first kiss as man and wife.

He had been spending as much time as he could with Ashlyn, trying to tell Kol as much as he could remember, organising things. Kol knew Giulia had two silver-daggers, and was glad she, who was doing everything in her power to help Elijah reunite his family though Kol didn't know it, had them. Kol didn't want to paint a target on his back by taking possession of them: Klaus would want them back, or, the legions of enemies he had created would make a play for them, not realising they would never work.

Chocolat, Vera and Cara wouldn't know until after. They knew better than most the civil warfare of the Original family, and enjoyed their lives, and Elijah's friendship, too much to risk everything by seeking vengeance for him.

They would see him again.

Jenna and Alaric's wedding was a wonderful excuse to dance with Vera and Cara; to laugh and drink with his brother and Chocolat; to enjoy his time with them, give them, especially Ashlyn, some wonderful last memories of him.

But Giulia…

Apart from gorging on ribs, cowboy baked-beans, fresh corn and coleslaw, peaches and cocktails, Giulia never sat down. Aside from Ric and Jenna, she was the first on the dance-floor, and the last to be carried off by Elijah himself. She danced with everyone, and Elijah enjoyed seeing another side to her. She was a natural with _children_. They flocked to her like moths to a flame, teaching them how to dance, making up games, kissing grazed knees, cuddling on the tree-swing; they _loved_ her. Caroline said it was the same at every party: though the idea of pregnancy and childbirth made her physically sick with dread, comically incapable of understanding the basic human drive to procreate, or think of the process as anything but unnatural, Giulia was gifted with children. He had never seen her with any before, few people did; she was an only-child and had no cousins, and so was Caroline; they weren't yet old enough for their friends to start having babies, but she had a natural, easy way with children. Elijah watched her, and imagined he was seeing how Zachary Salvatore had raised his daughter; as a little equal, treating her with respect, delight, admiration.

He danced with her as often as he could; she was in high-demand! But his gaze strayed to her often enough to know her eyes sought him out, as well…

They had a handful of days left, and fairness dictated she share him with Ashlyn, for all intents and purposes his daughter.

But as guests trickled home, and Ric and Jenna were ushered into a limousine to the pop of a _Cristal_ cork, the music stopped, lights extinguished and he retreated to her bedroom, still magically protected.

They ruined her dress.

It was a night Elijah would _never_ forget, her pretty hair, the flush to her cheeks, her bright eyes and sun-warmed skin, and their mutual understanding…

This was their goodbye.

It was the only way he could say it. How long would it be? A year? Twenty? Two months? They had no way of knowing: this was Giulia's long-con and she would take as much time as she needed, not a second less. Not for anyone; he had _her_ vow on that.

He couldn't put into words everything he was feeling; so he showed her. And he didn't stop until she collapsed beneath him, her legs shaking, tears in her eyes, raw welts clawed over his backside, her heartbeat irregular against his ear as he collapsed above her with a choked, agonised groan.

Too much. Too irreplaceable. He hadn't experienced this in centuries. Who would Giulia _be_ when she woke him? He was excited to find out. To him, it would seem a heartbeat; for her, it may have taken forty years.

He rolled to his side, so as not to crush her, groaning and collapsing, but he dragged her to him, legs still shaking violently, her expression almost pained, eyes wild, and she gasped dawn writhed away as he hooked one trembling thigh over his waist, his hand delving between her thighs; her fingernails bit into his shoulder, she whimpered and gave him a pleading look as he gathered her head into the curve of his elbow, dusting tender kisses all over her face, her lips, his hand slow and soothing as he gentler her, though inside he was still just as emotionally riled as she was physically overwhelmed.

He thrust his fingers gently, until her legs stopped shaking and she was sighing as she gently rolled her hips to meet him, his thumb delicately building an orgasm to gentle her.

"I want you…to remember something," he panted softly, as her hand teased him, she licked her lips and nipped his jaw, bit his earlobe; she mewled, preening and writhing to keep his hand working on her, holding himself back; she needed this. He needed her to hear this. "I'm very excited to meet you, Giulia Salvatore, no matter who you'll be."

She came, one last time, her eyes on his, and sighed, gentler; he drew her to him for a distracted kiss, and drew the covers over them, Giulia draped over him, exactly where he wanted her to be.

They fell asleep, finally, just kissing, curled up in each other's arms.

He could have happily been daggered then and there, no Niklaus, no farce – nothing to ruin waking from this moment, showering away the night and buttoning on a fresh suit to face what the world – and his brother – had in store for him.

He wasn't on borrowed time, yet, but he did have a handful of days left. To spend with Kol, extracting promises that he wouldn't go off the deep end or risk hunting Klaus down; reassuring Ashlyn; discussing business with Chocolat. Enjoying Giulia, soaking up every last second with her that he could.

* * *

 **A.N.** : I had to add a little bit – it's a wedding, after all! And, like you all, I'm getting antsy about Giulijah's separation – just remember, Elijah won't feel it.


	42. The Charge of the Light Brigade

**A.N.** : They're married! Yay! All is right with the world!

* * *

 **Dangerous Beauty**

 _42_

 _The Charge of the Light Brigade_

* * *

" _Boldly she drove, and well, into the quarry of death_ …" – not quite Alfred, Lord Tennyson

* * *

If Giulia was nervous, it didn't show: Elijah had learned she was a master at handling external pressures.

The days slipped away from him; he had rarely been more acutely aware of _time_ passing by – too quickly. Before he knew it, the Boarding House was full to capacity – Ric, Jenna and Jeremy; Elijah's friends, Kol, Ashlyn; Rosemary; Sheila Bennett arrived with her granddaughter after school. Mason Lockwood appeared with the duplicitous, doe-eyed Hayley Lockwood. Liz frowned around.

"Where's Caroline?"

"She hasn't called you?" Giulia frowned, pulling out her phone. She dialled Caroline. "Where are you?"

" _The hospital_ ," Caroline answered, somewhat frantically. " _One of Klaus's witches put Carol in the hospital._ "

"Whatever you do, don't give her your blood," Giulia said sternly. "Get your ass to the Boarding House now – and Carol's."

" _We're on our way – there was a bit of an issue_ ," Caroline said. " _Hey, ask why the hell Mason wasn't answering his phone; Tyler called him ages ago to get some help getting Carol out_."

"Oh, I will," Giulia growled, her eyes lancing to Hayley, flirting with Mason as he poured her a drink. "Get over here now."

" _We're on our way_ ," Caroline assured her. " _Giulia…Ear, Klaus's witches are dead. In the parking-lot_."

"What happened?" Giulia frowned.

" _They just_ appeared _out of nowhere when we were getting Carol in the car, they were doing something with their hands, I think they were trying to mind-melt us, one of them had vervain_."

"They must have been surprised you weren't affected," Giulia smirked at Elijah, who was listening. The bracelets she had had Sheila spell prevented witches' magic from harming her friends; they _all_ had one. Especially those who were supernatural and in a greater position to help protect everyone else.

" _Totally_ ," Caroline said. " _Before I snapped their necks_."

"If they're any kind of witch at all, they'll have put protection spells on themselves," Giulia said, the same magic that had just protected her friends. "We'll be seeing more of them."

" _We're on our way_ ," Caroline said. " _See you in a few minutes_." Giulia hung up, and stalked through the relative crowd gathered in the great-room. She put a hand on Hayley's shoulder, jerking her around.

"So, you chose Mason, did you?"

"What're you talking about?" Hayley asked, with a broad, bitchy smile, a flicker of unease in her eyes.

"Klaus asked you to keep Mason _distracted I_ so he could put Carol Lockwood in the hospital and have his witches kidnap her son as his backup-werewolf," Giulia said.

"I don't know what you're –"

"Please don't delude yourself that I can't see through right through you," Giulia said coldly, and Hayley closed her mouth, raising her chin slightly, her expression morphing.

"Carol's in the hospital?" Mason asked, fishing his phone out of his pocket. Giulia kept her eyes on Hayley as Mason listened to his twelve voicemail messages.

Quietly, Giulia said, "I will never understand how it's people least-deserving of it who have everyone running around after them." Her eyes slid to Elena. "You truly are a piece of work."

"He threatened to kill me if I –"

"I didn't realise there was anything you're actually living for," Giulia said coldly, and Hayley jerked her head back – like a wolf avoiding a trap – looking stunned.

"They're on their way," Mason said, hanging up the phone with Tyler; he glared at Hayley, who had the grace to flush, but she continued to glare daggers at Giulia, whose opinion of her had solidified irrevocably. Aimless, irresponsible, she was all for what she could get, and rather than get herself a job, settle down, manage her condition, build a life, she chased after men and let them shove it wherever they wanted so they'd look after her – and kept her options open, never settling on one guy; she had been chasing Tyler at the same time as she was going after Mason. The only difference was, Mason was a decent guy who wanted to see the best in her, give her the chance to make a better life for herself. But she had been involved in Caroline's capture, and Tyler didn't even have to know about Giulia's torture to put up blocks where Hayley was concerned. Mason let out a shaky sigh. "Carol has a broken arm, she's all banged up. Says some big guy came to the office early this morning, shoved her over the stair-rail. Secretary found her when she came in."

"Did she mention that two witches tried to jump Tyler and Caroline?" Giulia said softly. She gave Hayley a look she deserved, and met Carol, Tyler and Caroline at the door, helping get Carol settled on the daybed. She refused vampire-blood to heal, given everything.

It was purely precautionary, inviting everyone over to the Boarding House; until the sun rose tomorrow morning, Giulia didn't want to give Klaus any further opportunity to get to anyone. The bracelets she had given her friends were precautionary against the inevitable involvement of Klaus' witches to do his dirty-work. She had anticipated how he'd operate, who he'd use, and who Klaus would target after their little brush in the bakery. Were there two people she wouldn't protect more fiercely than Caroline and Tyler?

She had invited everyone to the Boarding House, and protected it. Protected _them_. Until sunrise, no-one could get in or out of the house. The adults sat sharing a drink, talking; Caroline was helping Matt with his homework, trying to boost his abysmal GPA with their final end-of-year exams; Bonnie and Elena were doing their nails, _not_ doing homework, Stefan hovering, suffocatingly close. Giulia played dirty-Scrabble with Jeremy, Cara and Ashlyn, until the flirting got too much, the game forgotten, and Cara drifted off to tease Kol.

Dinner was lasagne, shrimp manicotti, a lot of salad and garlic-bread; a last supper, of sorts. All the people in their lives who truly meant the world to them, gathered in one place. And John and Hayley, both out of place and disliked, but protected, because _Giulia_ was a decent person.

She and Elijah had gone over everything so often, they didn't need to discuss it anymore. So it didn't ruin everything; they had already made their goodbyes.

The trouble was in getting Elena away from Stefan. It was as if he felt his sheer presence alone could scare off impending doom.

Giulia went upstairs as the sun lowered in the sky, up to the attic, and retrieved the moonstone, tucked in the eaves between layers of old insulation. She had protected the secret of its location with magic, buried in her soul, so the truth could never be coerced or stolen from her. The moonstone could only be retrieved by Giulia at the moment of her choosing.

Elijah met her at the foot of the stairs, and cradled her face in his hands, panting softly as he tried to control emotion threatening to overwhelm him. She leaned in, giving him a gentle kiss. He groaned softly, fingers threading through her hair to hold her close, giving her a deep, luxurious kiss that made her rock on her toes, panting when he released her. She could see the struggle in his dark eyes, and she felt it, too; this would be the last time she would see him – for a very long time.

She wanted to treasure what they had, but didn't want to waste her life waiting for him.

However long it took her, when he finally met her again, she wanted to have something to…to tell him, about her life. She wanted him to have to rediscover who she was, who she had grown into, the adventures she had had.

She couldn't remain _this_ Giulia, seventeen years old, in love with him. That was not the sum-total of who she was, she wouldn't allow that.

But, oh, she was going to miss him.

And she hadn't told him.

She took his hand and led him into her sound-proofed bedroom, closing the door behind her.

The turmoil in his lovely dark eyes spilled over; she had barely unbuttoned her jeans and he had them stripped down her thighs, gripping her hips and thrusting into her in one powerful, relentless shove that made her choke on a cry, sucking in a breath.

They both needed this. One last, desperate time, the _real_ last-time. On her tiptoes, biting his collarbone through his shirt, arms wrapped around his shoulders as she panted and clung on, his hands splayed across her backside, nipping her ear, panting, thrusting unforgivingly – this was _her_ last time with him – for years.

Whatever happened tonight, she'd take him with her, the echo of him still throbbing between her thighs, her body _alive_. She moaned, licked her lips, sighed and grinned lazily as Elijah stole a kiss, picking her up by her thighs, grunting with every powerful surge of his hips, twisting them so slightly the way he knew drove her insane, pushing her to the edge. She laughed, moaned, and came, clinging to him. Elijah groaned, and followed her, capturing her lips for a searing kiss that said everything they were both afraid of.

He withdrew from her with a pained expression, stealing another kiss from her as she tried to wiggle back into her jeans, her legs shaking, body wired, throbbing, yearning for him, her muscles clamping down on nothing as aftershocks riddled her body. Just the way he'd wanted – she would never forget how much her body ached for him.

But he had to let her go.

That was the last time.

He slipped downstairs first, and she followed at her leisure, the moonstone heavy in one pocket, tucking things into her inside-jacket pockets.

Strangely, it wasn't as difficult to separate Elena from Stefan as she had anticipated: Giulia came across her coming out of the bathroom.

"Hey, when –?"

Giulia held a finger to her lips, glancing pointedly to the gallery, overlooking the great-room. Elena nodded, understanding, and Giulia took her hand, leading her downstairs. There was no point disguising their footsteps by taking their shoes off; their heartbeats would betray them.

But they got downstairs to the foyer and out the front-door without anyone noticing to stop them. Now they couldn't; there was no crossing the threshold outside. Vampires were usually stopped from entering; Giulia had made sure that, until sunrise, everyone except Elijah was being held safe inside the Boarding House. They couldn't chase after them, do anything stupid – and most importantly, the spell prevented anyone from getting in, too. She didn't trust Klaus not to hunt down the supernatural under the influence of his confusing new instincts.

She pulled the door to quietly, tucked a little vial into the foliage of a planter by the door, licking her lips, and straightened up, taking Elena's hand to lead her down the driveway. It wasn't for comfort that she took Elena's hand; not her own, anyway, but Elena had that deer-in-headlights look and kept jumping at every tiny sound in the growing dark. Only the sound of night-insects, the occasional birdsong and the tread of their shoes against the brick driveway could be heard. Elena looked so skittish one hoot of an owl might send her fleeing back to the Boarding House – only to be rebuffed by strong magic. Giulia wanted to avoid a _scene_ with Stefan – she imagined he would become desperate, Damon would threaten someone, and the witches within would be strong-armed into releasing them from the house.

Giulia climbed into the driver's seat of her beloved _Beetle_ , smiling to herself as she caressed the worn old steering-wheel, taking everything in as the sun threatened a spectacular sunset, gilding everything in sight, hot and bright and delicious, a gentle breeze chasing away the closeness of the humid air. Elena looked a little startled as she climbed into the passenger seat, buckling her seatbelt.

"Where are we going?" Elena asked quietly, as Giulia sighed, enjoying the sound of her engine start into life. There was no sound like that, her old engine. She buckled herself in, rolled down her window, put the car in gear and drove off.

"Why are you here with me?" Elena asked, frowning. She stared at Giulia when she gave an enigmatic shrug. "Are you at least going to tell me where we're going?"

"The place where it began," Giulia said. She had lived Elijah's memories of his human-life. In the very place where Esther had protected Niklaus from warring instincts a thousand years ago, there now rested an abandoned quarry – the same quarry where, just under a hundred and fifty years ago, Stefan and Damon had transitioned into vampires.

She found the poetic irony delicious.

The sunset was fabulous, rich oranges, fuchsias, forget-me-not, lilac and pale-pink, deep purple, gilded pillowy-soft clouds billowing on the horizon, dark and magnificent and ominous. Giulia parked her car in the tree-line, not risking the suspension to drive down to the ramshackle little hut where Stefan had forced Damon to turn decades ago. They had an unforgettable view.

"Wow," Elena said softly, and Giulia nodded. She finally climbed out of the car, resting gently against the hood, watching the sun set. She just watched it, the colours, those billowing clouds looming ominously and glorious, gunmetal trimmed with gold, against the glorious sunset. Elena was caught up in the beauty of it, too, and left Giulia to enjoy it.

Not for long, though. As soon as the sun had hidden itself away behind the horizon, Giulia let out a sigh, and Elena turned to her, frowning.

"So why are you even here with me?" she asked. "How did you know _this_ is where the sacrifice will be? Are you working for –?"

"Hello, my lovelies," a soft voice said, and Elena gasped. Giulia raised an eyebrow at Klaus, waiting with the appearance of patience nearby, hands clasped behind his back, a benign smile on his face. She heard Elena swallow, saw her cheekbones jut out as she sucked in a terrified breath, seeming to resist the urge to take a step backward. Giulia gave him a cool look as he smiled tauntingly at her. For one moment, he ignored Elena. "Shall we get down to it?"

"I've nothing better planned for the evening," Giulia said quietly, and Klaus smiled as he took the moonstone from her outstretched palm.

He reached forward, and snapped Giulia's neck.

Elena's scream rang out, strangled and shocked, echoing in the still darkness as Giulia's tall, curvy body – so full of strength, so _fiery_ , so unconquerable – crumpled to the ground like a marionette's strings being cut.

* * *

 **A.N.** : …You weren't expecting that.


	43. A Thousand Years or More Ago

**A.N.** : If I ever write a _Game of Thrones_ fanfic, I want my character Lyarra's song to be 'Dance of Dragons' from season five, because I feel it is wasted on the Khaleesi. The song is epic. It would also fit for Giulia, but of course in this world it's still 2010 and Ned Stark is still alive! But the song works for the theme of this chapter. Listen to it, and think of Giulia.

The chapter-title was inspired by the first song Harry ever hears the Sorting Hat sing. I just went to see _Finding Dory_ and one of the trailers was _Fantastic Beasts_ … I was _giddy_ in my cinema seat, clapping my hands like an excited six-year-old on Christmas day!

* * *

 **Dangerous Beauty**

 _43_

 _A Thousand Years or More Ago…_

* * *

The sun had set in a violent wash of fuchsia and red, gilded by the strong, dying sun.

"Where's Elena?" Stefan asked, eyes widening in alarm as he glanced around the great-room, finding her gone. The two Salvatore brothers searched every room, finding no trace; Damon had to threaten to subdue Stefan with vervain if he didn't calm down – Giulia had protected Elena's life where they had come up empty.

It was a few moments before Caroline, her voice so quiet and so solemn it was terrifying, asked, "Where's _Giulia_?"

She glanced at Elijah, whose features were pale and impossibly perfect. He had watched the two girls walk down the driveway to Giulia's beloved _Beetle_ , one so slender it looked painful, the other tall and luscious, both dark-haired, both so different.

Giulia had asked him for his faith, and though it went beyond all his experience to trust so implicitly in one person, especially one so brilliant – he did. She had taken a vow from him, knowing exactly what she was doing – what she was prepared to do for him. He couldn't see how _this_ was to his favour in finding his family…but if it was one movement on the chessboard, he would continue his part in their strategy to win the final game.

He swallowed, and met Caroline's eye.

"She's gone," he said softly. He had listened to the two girls steal from the house, smelled the tang of blood, and footsteps, two heartbeats – one steady, strong, the other thrumming like a hummingbird in panic – steadily getting softer the further away from the house they had walked, pace determined. Giulia had led the way.

He stared at Caroline, and she stared back – until Damon grabbed him by the lapels, fury in his face, and Liz had to warn him off, as Caroline darted in a blonde blur to the front-door, flinging herself out – rebuffed violently by magic.

"It's the way she wants it," Sheila said softly, and all eyes went to her. Elijah straightened his suit-jacket, hiding the tremble of his fingers as he neatened his tie, and tried not to dwell. He knew Giulia's scream too well; that scream had come from Elena. And that meant only one thing.

Giulia was dead.

 _He needed a vampire,_ his mind whispered, and remembered Giulia extracting his promise – that _no matter what happened_ he would continue with their plan. _Her_ plan.

Sheila had said ' _It's the way she wants it'_ and that was certainly true. They had all – Elijah himself included – been pawns as Giulia played _her_ game against his brother, whether Klaus knew it was Giulia pulling strings or not. Whether he realised she was _still_ pulling strings, even now.

This was the way Giulia wanted it.

How it fit into her plan, Elijah had no idea. But he knew her too well, knew she hadn't _ignored_ the hints that she was not… _normal_ , not fully _human_. How could she?

He had to leave the moment Caroline realised what was going on. Realised that Giulia…was _gone_. He couldn't watch her frantic heartbreak, her disbelief, beside herself with grief and confusion. The others were protected inside the Boarding House, Sheila Bennett had ensured that; Elijah was the exception, and as Caroline devolved into hysteria, trying to get out, blinded by tears as she tried to get to her friend, Elijah buttoned his jacked and slipped out the back-door.

He had no doubt Giulia would make it up to Caroline.

But _he_ hadn't expected this. And though he wanted it to affect their plan…he couldn't let it. She had made him swear, already _planning_ this, to make sure… She had left the house of her own volition, she had strode up to Klaus moonstone in-hand, leading the doppelgänger…

 _Boldly they rode, and well_ …

For a few interminable moments, Elijah focused entirely on the simple fact that Giulia had driven to her death, to be used as a vampire in Niklaus' sacrifice.

She was… _gone_.

Dead.

And, though he had faith in her, he could not see how this was the way.

But it was too late to alter the course; and he would not break his word to her.

He walked off, following Giulia's scent, hiding out of sight, upwind, from the quarry, so he could see, but not be seen.

Until the full moon reached its apex and the sacrifice ritual completed, he had to remain hidden.

And his eyes never wavered from the dark mass on the dry brown grass by the water's edge, natural waves glinting in the firelight as Klaus' large male witch prepared.

The little female one, Greta, had not survived her attack on Caroline and Tyler earlier in the day. A shame; a little vampire-blood in her system and her death might have meant something.

He saw, but didn't let it in; that dark figure crumpled on the ground was Giulia.

Elijah was, but he couldn't…process, couldn't accept that she was there. That all along she had been planning this. He didn't let it in, couldn't. Giulia was not dead. She had a reason for everything she did, a motivation, some kind of insight. But in this instance…he could not see it. Perhaps she had learned something she hadn't shared with him – they still had their secrets from each other, after all, and he was sure Giulia had some secrets she didn't even know she was keeping.

They had a while to wait. Giulia would not rise; and until then, everything else was on hold.

Elijah stayed upwind, out of earshot, and broke.

Shock and grief warred with confusion, and anger, crippling him.

It did not matter in the instant his knees buckled, grief seeming to shatter every bone in his body, unable to support himself, sorrow and loss seeming to sear his veins as his heart throbbed with a devastating ache, his hand shook as he raised it to knead the heel of his palm against his chest, his heart seeming to burn within his chest, his eyes burning, acid trickling down his cheeks, gasping for breath.

How could she do this?

 _Don't you dare break your promise_ , her voice whispered in his mind.

She had known. This was always her plan.

And she had never let on – because how could she tell him _this_?

He would never risk it – never risk _her_.

Not for Niklaus.

Not for his family.

Not even for Gyda.

He wanted her _back_. He wanted her _here_ – he wanted to play cards with her; design little puzzles for her; he wanted to fuck her raw morning and night, wherever he chanced to find her. He wanted to dance the night away with her, and lose track of _time_ with her. He wanted to share his meals with her; tease her; explore the world with her. He wanted her to grow up, to blossom into a fearsome woman he knew in his heart she would become, awing, generous, loyal, brilliant. Irreplaceable.

Elijah could still taste her on his lips, still smelt her perfume and her scent on him, felt her muscles squeezing him so deliciously as she panted and writhed in his arms, smiling.

He watched, wiping his face on his handkerchief, willing her to rise.

He could not imagine Giulia would ever have allowed Niklaus to force his blood on her; whose had she used? He remembered the tang of blood on the air as she and Elena had crept from the house. Whose? The house was full of vampires; who had she asked for their blood? A flicker of anger shot through him; she had not asked him. But then, he would never have consented to this; and she knew it.

So he watched. And he waited. And he wished Giulia could see the state Elena was in, fluttering over her dead body, wringing her hands and crying. The memory of Caroline's hysteria made every risk Giulia had ever taken for her best-friend worthwhile; Caroline loved Giulia just as much.

And Caroline was tucked away where Giulia knew she was safe.

 _Valour_.

Giulia possessed it in excess.

* * *

She groaned, her head throbbing, something nicking at her tongue, her jaw aching, and sat up, rubbing the back of her neck, exhaling.

A petrified gasp made her glance up, squinting in the light of fires illuminating everything with a vibrancy she had never experienced before, a handful of small fires conjured by magic to illuminate the rocky water's edge of the quarry, mesmerising, elusive, lulling. She sneezed, shaking her head, at the scents swirling around her, overwhelming, delicious, the sun-baked earth, the wild flowers in a meadow, the richness of tiny violets in a glade in the woods, her own perfume reacting exquisitely with her skin and her sweat from the hot day, she could hear the breeze whispering like a conversation through the trees, heard birdsong in notes she had never heard, the ripple of water like a melody, she could feel the heat from the sun-baked earth, the scent of warm skin and the rush of blood pumping from a heart beating frantically.

Elena.

Giulia tilted her head thoughtfully as she observed her, dark hair shimmering around her tear-stained face, tiny nose and dark eyes, she could see why Stefan found her attractive – the firelight made her hair shimmer with mahoganies, cherry-reds, golden-copper and chestnut, her eyes looked prettier…

With a pang that hit her with the strength of a gunshot-wound, Giulia gasped at the pain shattering through her body as she fleetingly wondered how pretty Elijah's dark eyes would be with her new eyesight.

All she wanted…was him.

She didn't care about blood – she knew she had to feed, but she didn't care: She wanted her Elijah.

And she had to swallow, and push that thought away, because _this_ was _her_ plan, this was what she had to do. This was the leap of faith she was taking, and everything after it would fall into place exactly the way she wanted – for him.

 _Elijah_ , her heart sighed, squeezing painfully in her chest.

"Giulia…are you okay?" Elena asked breathlessly, hovering on her tiptoes, about to take flight, tears spilling over her wan cheeks. Why she was crying, Giulia didn't know; she'd wake up at dawn ready to skip school again.

"Why wouldn't I be?" she asked, frowning softly. She felt fine – more herself, though fidgety. As if she needed to shed her old skin. She could…still feel Elijah. More exquisitely. Her gums ached, and she knew why. She could taste the salt of Elena's tears on the air, as if she had melted a lump of salt on her own tongue; the crackle of the fire lulled her, its brightness and the mesmerising, unnameable colours flickering in its depths whispering to her; the breeze sighed, murmuring secrets, bringing with it the scent of the sunshine, decaying wood, the tang of hot tarmac, wildflowers and oversweet, rotting fruit, the strawberry-lime gum in Elena's pocket, its little wrapper scratching against the fabric of her jeans, the reaction of Elena's sweat against her cheap necklace, and the scent of her hair, killed, no matter how much protective serum she used, by abusive flat-ironing.

"You're – you're… Giulia, you're in _transition_ ," Elena gasped, gazing imploringly at her as if Giulia had missed a beat.

"I know," Giulia blinked.

"And I'll bet you're thirsty," a deep voice said. Klaus' hulking male witch strode forward, a lethal-looking sacrificial blade in his hand. He sliced his arm, holding it out to Giulia with a self-satisfied smirk.

The scent was tantalising, it made Giulia's mouth water; there was no denying it.

But she gave him an imperious, disdainful look, pulling a blood-bag from her inside jacket-pocket, telling him, "I don't eat junk food."

She punctured the blood-bag – one-hundred percent certified B+ soccer-mom, Caroline's favourite. She had taken it from Car's stash – and drank it down like a juice-box.

The senses that had sharpened in her transition now honed exquisitely. Scents, heat, sounds, everything magnified a hundred-fold, and Giulia sighed, licking her lips, chest heaving as blood rushed through her body, tickling her fingertips and sending blood throbbing to every pressure-point. She groaned, bending backwards to stretch, and hummed happily as everything clicked and relaxed.

Every sensation Elijah had left her body aching from, taking her hard against the wall in her childhood bedroom, was magnified – her urge was not to tear Elena's throat out, but to choke on a moan as she slipped a hand into her jeans, resisting the urge, whimpering as every tiny motion rubbed her denims against her thin panties, the friction making her shiver, taking her so much by surprise she almost tripped over her own feet. Her bra felt too tight, constricting, and all she wanted was to strip everything off and roll around in the luscious sun-baked grass, exploring her throbbing clit and her aching nipples, every movement of her shoulders rubbing the fabric of her bra against her pierced nipple and making her knees buckle.

She could still feel him, throbbing deep inside her, raw and delicious, full on the echo of him but missing him, panted softly to herself as she strolled in a circle, a tiny private smile on her lips as she enjoyed the deliciousness of the fabric rubbing against her, teasing her nipples, the scent of the warm grass drifting up to her, the colours of the fire mesmerising, and she tripped on her own feet as her gaze lifted, and found herself entranced. The _stars_ …

Giulia pulled out her earphones, put her favourite playlist on, and lay back on the fragrant, warm earth, encircled by vibrant fire, blocking Elena's whimpering cries as she listened to her favourite songs – 'Let's Spend the Night Together', 'Nessun Dorma', 'Send Me on My Way', 'White Blank Page' and 'You Should be Dancing' above all – lying on her back, one ankle draped on her other knee, bouncing to the music, hands behind her head, watching the cosmos glow and undulate and glitter above her, enjoying the private, delicious feeling of her clothing caressing her skin, her hardest urge not that of fighting through the enchanted flames to tear Elena's throat out and glut on her blood, but to slip her hand inside her jeans. She gazed at the moon, knowing he had by now made his way from the Boarding House, would now at this moment be hidden, watching – a streak of guilt might almost have been enough to douse her arousal, but the breeze had picked up, caressing lovingly over her t-shirt, and she listened to her favourite music, revelling in the new sensations she got to enjoy.

This was what Caroline felt every day. This… _delight_ , a sense of wonder – the world was more beautiful than even she had ever imagined. With her new eyes, the moon glowed silver and brilliant, the fire flickering and dancing with unnamed hues, everything illuminated like daylight, only richer, moodier, she adored it, her favourite music the soundtrack to this macabre scene, and she lifted her head and raised an eyebrow as a pained scream shot through the still air, a hunched figure shuddering with pain, her ears picking up the sound of her organs churning and bones shattering like branches splintering in a high wind – in slow-motion – over her music. Klaus reappeared, towing a buckled Jules. The werewolf. He had his doppelgänger, he now had his vampire. He was only missing one key ingredient.

"Ladies," he said softly, smirking around as a flaming circle shot up around Jules, screaming in agony, magic preventing her from turning. Her body was trying to fight the witch's spell, the need to turn more powerful than any other magic – it had transcended Klaus's death, after all.

Giulia turned off her iPod, wrapped the earphones around it and slipped it into her pocket, and stood, dusting the grass off her jeans. Klaus sauntered over to her, his eyes on her.

"I believe you have something of mine," he said quietly. Giulia took the moonstone out of her pocket, tossing it negligently to him. He caught it, giving her an annoyed look, before turning to his witch. He sighed as he examined it in the firelight, smooth and glowing. "I've been searching for this for half a millennium… I hate to part with it."

"The moon is past its apex," the witch said. "You remember everything you need to do?"

"I've had witches working on deconstructing this curse for centuries," Klaus said, an impatient bite in his tone. "Of course I bloody remember." The witch raised an eyebrow, then tossed the moonstone negligently onto a great boulder, temporarily blinding Giulia's new eyes as sparks flew, flames soaring high, and Jules screamed beside her. As if drawn to the sound, Klaus sauntered over.

"Giulia…" Jules moaned, her eyes shining with tears of complete agony as she tried to look up, seeking Giulia's face through the firelight. "Giulia…?"

"I'm here," Giulia said quietly, taking a knee beside the flames, wary of their heat.

Jules panted, screaming in pain, but she held Giulia's eye, and whimpered, "I'm so… _sorry_. I need you to know that."

Giulia hadn't expected any apology, but she took Jules' with grace, nodding delicately. "Shall we?" The flames disappeared, and Klaus sauntered over to her. Jules glanced around, caught Giulia's eye, and darted away – Elena gasped, horrified, as Klaus caught her, a hand plunged into her chest, and Giulia swallowed, eyes narrowing, as he caressed her face almost lovingly, the tang of salt from her tears as they glittered on her cheeks, and ripped her heart from her chest in a spray of blood that made Elena jump, eyes swimming.

Klaus dawdled over to his witch, a smug smile on his face, bloody heart dripping on the ground, and Giulia noted Elena, her knees buckling, hand covering her mouth to stop a scream from erupting, choking back tears, as she narrowed her own eyes on Klaus, dislike seeping through every cell in her body. He was _enjoying_ this.

After a thousand years, he had worked Esther's spell into some kind of curse to punish him – he believed wrongly that only he knew how much he truly deserved such punishment: but Esther hadn't intended to punish him, but _protect_ him. From instincts he didn't understand, impulses he couldn't master. She understood the urge to do what was necessary, to take pleasure in the game – but to _enjoy_ cruelty, to savour the cold-blooded murder of a stranger for his own gain…

 _Runt of the litter_ , her mind whispered.

His witch muttered under his breath, performing the spell as Klaus squeezed the blood from Jules' still-warm heart, her tears still damp on her dull cheeks, curls teased by the breeze, sprawled on her back, tossed aside negligently like a crumpled candy-wrapper.

 _My turn_ , she thought, understanding the distracted whisper of the witch, the growing inferno of the fire in front of him, the way Klaus turned to her, malevolent smile in place as the fire sent ugly shadows across his face.

She would not let him enjoy her death the way he had gotten so much satisfaction from Jules'. He would look back on this moment with annoyance, dissatisfaction – _regret_.

"You're getting exactly what you wanted," Giulia said softly, a smile on her lips, in her voice. "You will regret it."

"Mighty bold talk from someone on death-row," Klaus said mildly. Giulia beamed.

"Sweetheart, I'll have the last laugh," she assured him, and laughed as she dashed into the flames encircling her. Elena's horrified, continuous screams and Klaus' roar of rage as he bellowed " _Nooooo!_ " and threw a tantrum, the unused stake in his hand splintering, his expression maddened, made her laugh as she burned.

* * *

He traipsed through the carnage, the bodies.

The werewolf Jules, her ribcage shattered open, tears still glittering on her pale cheeks, disposed of carelessly, unwanted, on the rocks.

Elena Gilbert, dark eyes closed, her dark hair a curtain over her face, masking the gaping wound he could smell on the air, draped on the ground where Niklaus had let her slide down, body drained of her blood now smeared around his brother's mouth.

And Giulia. Her dark hair, gone, her luscious body, unrecognisable, the flames devouring her greedily. Pain burned behind his eyes, threatening to shatter him from within, and he paused by her side, the heat of the flames uncomfortable against his skin.

This was not his Giulia.

But despite himself, he smiled. Certainly she had met her death on her own terms, in a way only Giulia Salvatore could ever have; smirking, taking the upper-hand, taunting, taking the sadistic pleasure away from Klaus, knowing absolute control over every minute of this was what he _craved_ – and she had deprived him of, taking that pleasure with her.

He noticed her jacket, neatly-folded on the ground beside her, untouched.

He frowned down at the sound of music, found Giulia's iPod playing – 'Nessun Dorma'.

' _None shall sleep', indeed_ , he thought, with a heavy sigh, glancing up at the crunch of bone. He paused Giulia's music, tucking the iPod back in the jacket-pocket, and turned his eyes to Niklaus.

He strolled through the macabre detritus, hyper-aware of the warmth to his back as the other fires burned out, casually observing his brother, reaping what he sowed.

Giulia's hypothesis had been proven accurate with this first glance.

Half-man, half-beast, bones crunching, choking on howls of agony with the entrails he had torn from his witch's stomach with bloody claws tipping huge, unearthly paw-like hands, thumbless, covered in fur, soft black pads instead of palms. A snout, a lethal, bloodied maw, in place of his mouth, smeared with blood and entrails as he ripped mindlessly through flesh, glowing black eyes glazed, unseeing, devouring the liver and soft organs, enjoying the rending of soft flesh, the crunch of bones, digging for the marrow, thoroughly canine, and yet still half in the form of a man.

His witch showed the signs of being hunted by a wolf – deep, bleeding gashes to the backs of his legs – but also signs a vampire had attacked, throat mangled before instinct had overpowered him, shaking his struggling prey to snap his neck – the witch's head had been torn clean off.

Elijah had seen many a macabre scene in his unending life – the most harrowing still his earlier memories of life in the castle in Marseille – but this…it was one of the most disturbing things he had ever seen. And he had lived through the Inquisition!

His _brother_ was gone.

Before him was some… _thing_. A mindless, warped _monster_.

Watching him was horrifying. From the other side of the quarry Elijah had watched Klaus as the moonlight seemed to linger on his skin like a physical caress, and then it all went wrong. Whatever Klaus had expected, it was not this; but Giulia had. He had watched as Klaus started to change, _stuck_. He sniffed the air, muzzle pointed to the werewolf, rearing, and howling mournfully into the night at the loss of one of his own. He sneezed at Elena Gilbert; and as for Giulia's burning corpse, he eschewed the flames with a sneeze and a growl, backing away warily, growling low. Then he noticed the only living prey; Elijah had watched him turn on his witch, overpowering him easily after the witch had depleted his strength to lift Esther's spell. Klaus had acted like a _wolf_ – without a pack to help him take down his prey. He had _hunted_ the witch, wolf-like, but with certain behaviours more attributed to vampires, and was now fixated on digging out his innards, mindless.

Elijah whistled under his breath, taking a secret enjoyment from taunting him. With a snarl, Klaus leapt over the witch's body, hovering over it, posture aggressive, defensive. Animalistic.

His eyes were unnerving, glowing amber bleeding into black, veins flickering under his eyes, his facial-features distorted, eyes pushed wider, nose still slightly more human than the blood muzzle, human teeth shining red, blonde hair glinting, clothes splattered with blood, a low, continuous rumble of a growl emanating from a chest bowed and misshapen, arms at an unnatural angle, legs shaking as bones snapped, breaking up the growl with a yelp of pain, distracted utterly from his enemy, his guard down as Elijah advanced.

He had Niklaus' heart in his hand, pounding frantically away; he wondered if Niklaus was even aware, even _there_ to feel the poetic justice of Elijah tearing the beating heart from his chest. His mind whispered, _Giulia…_ The heat from her body burned against his back, the glow of the riotous flames casting shadows, distorting Klaus' already monstrous visage. Klaus' body shuddered in awareness, the hideous yelping whine of distress reverberating up Elijah's arm as bones snapped and reformed, his brother's features seemed to morph across his face, awareness and horror suddenly flicking in his eyes, as Klaus choked on an agonised gasp.

"'Lijah!" he gasped, and Elijah reared back as his face changed again, human eyes and nose jarring like a _Picasso_ into a canine maw, sharp fangs bloody, full of flesh, shining in the moonlight, snapping viciously at Elijah's throat with a brutal bark. Elijah stepped back, out of reach, and watched.

His brother was _slow_.

Crawling on all fours, an unnatural monster made real from nightmares, hands halfway morphed into paws, hairy, thumbless, black pads instead of palms, claws bloody from his prey, muzzle incongruous on his face, eyes pushed apart, ears distorted, chest snapping and bowing, insides in turmoil, thigh-bone and clavicle snapping as he howled and snapped frothing jaws, growling, crawling toward him, _human_ emotion tearing across his face – pain, terror – his chest slowly healing. He gave an inhuman, non-canine sound like a scream and a growl overlying each other, and Elijah watched stony-faced as his brother's form stretched out, back bowing, howling into the night, snarling continuously as he dragged himself, furious, focused, toward Elijah, every vertebra in his spine shattering – Elijah could hear every single one splinter, heard the howl of agony, saw his brother briefly flash through the hideous visage of his new form, utterly shocked, utterly _lost_ , the moon's toll taking effect, the snout reappearing with a snarl.

With a _crack_ Elijah felt in his marrow, Klaus reared, howling in torture, and Elijah watched, hiding his horror, as his back warped, rearing, more lupine in form, snarling, his jaw dripping with bloody saliva – his own blood, as well as the dead witch's – rearing to his toes, body curving, and he let out several vicious barks, snapping his lethal fangs in Elijah's direction, lurching.

More lupine than man, Elijah traced away, out of his reach. Drawing him away from…from the girls.

They had died because of him. He would not allow them to be dishonoured further.

And he drew Niklaus away.

The heat from Giulia softened, until he no longer felt it; instead, he could sense Niklaus following him, chasing him through the woods – he slowed his pace, needing Niklaus to keep his focus on him. Drawing him deeper into the woods…where he could harm no-one.

Shock temporarily overrode his sense of grief and heartbreak, his _loss_.

He had not truly anticipated how… _devastating_ lifting Mother's spell would be for Niklaus. A necessary evil, an opportunity – he had thought of the sacrificial magic only as a means to achieve his ends – punish Niklaus, find his family.

While he had been plotting to kill Niklaus, at the very least give him his only true scare in centuries, Giulia…had seen this coming. Had laughed in the face of Niklaus' fury, not in the least annoyed she would not be there to witness this; she had already seen it. Understood the delicacies of Esther's magic overriding his instincts, the way her magic had warped his nature, tearing him apart from the inside out, physically – and mentally.

She knew.

And she had warned him, _No matter what happens_ …

At the very least, Kol and Ashlyn knew what he was up to. If Ashlyn could find the daggers, she might be able to find _them_ … If he continued Giulia's plan and allowed himself to be daggered by Niklaus for attempting his assassination, and she learned of her friend's death…Ashlyn would surely have motivation to find him? Release him – reunite him with his family… Surely…

Perhaps that was what Giulia had had in mind all along.

But _why_ …?

There was no point asking what was going on in Giulia's head – he wouldn't understand what she was thinking until she wanted him to. Whenever he thought he had caught up, he realised he was still twelve steps behind. _The game_ …

Was her death all part of the game – _her_ game? Her strategy?

He might never know. Not until he tested it.

And he had given his word.

Over a thousand years, that was all he had of his own to keep. His word. His honour. The humblest part of him, his trickiest flaw.

The sun hurt his eyes as it rose, the sky palest lilac, warm peach, gilded, waking the world, birdsong falling silent as he led Niklaus further into the woods, watching on in horror, discerning more the longer he watched, the more Niklaus – the _thing_ that had replaced him – struggled.

He never truly became a wolf. Not entirely. He stumbled and lurched through the woods; temporarily, he became almost a man entirely again, screaming in torture, begging Elijah to help him. He did not. He watched, the snout sharpening, eyes glowing amber in the sunlight, discerning that though Niklaus was not slave to the moon, he was…slave to the beast within, untethered, Niklaus powerless to stop the transformation overriding everything else. The beast was trying to leap free, leashed within Niklaus' own skin, entirely losing himself to the monster, more wolf than man, crazed and mindless – _bloodlust_.

Only Niklaus' vampirism prevented the beast from breaking free entirely; Esther's magic still had its hold on Niklaus, in its way, his vampire instincts glimmering in the chaos of his new nature, drawing him back, keeping the beast from throwing itself over the brink, and taking Niklaus with it.

Whether Niklaus was following him, hoping Elijah would help him or put an end to his pain, or the beast followed him with some instinct, Elijah did not know, but Niklaus followed him, and that was all that mattered. He drew the monster away from the small town that would never forget.

He watched his brother kill a deer in the dawn, a beautiful doe with inky dark eyes and great long lashes, pretty ears and a delicate wet little nose, seeming to smile serenely at Elijah in the twinkling half-light touched with amber and rose, green glowing around them. For a moment, he was thrown back to the forests and fjords of Kattegat, hunting deer, spending hours in the glowing green forests, the tang of spring snows on the air.

Niklaus set upon the deer with a savagery that stole the breath from Elijah's lungs.

* * *

Two nights and a day, Niklaus struggled. Several times, he appeared almost a man again, collapsed on the sun-baked ground amid fallen leaves and forest debris, almost dead, his heartbeat so slow, his injuries slowly healing, dazed, his eyes glazed.

Finally, he emerged from the chaos. Long enough to ask why Elijah had not killed him.

"It occurs to me this…may be exactly what you deserve," Elijah said, waving a hand delicately at Niklaus. "I cannot very well reunite my family with you dead. Rather…it would be far easier to awaken them with you alive."

This was not what Niklaus had envisioned. They both knew it.

And Elijah had quickly understood that Niklaus could not have someone alive and walking this earth who knew of this… _vulnerability_.

The very thing Niklaus had counted on as his greatest weapon seemed now to be an unpredicted… _liability_.

Well…someone had predicted it.

Elijah wondered how long Niklaus would be slave to the beast.

A true monster.

"Well, if that's all you wanted," Klaus said, with a smile that did not reach his eyes. There was no gloating, no smugness, nothing but horror, truly shaken to his core. He had not seen that look in Niklaus' eyes since Father had had him strung up for his flogging. "You need only have asked."

He staggered from the ground, naked, his broken body still shaking, healing. He no longer had the advanced healing Elijah did, and he knew Klaus saw him observing his inferior healing. Seeking out weaknesses.

Elijah didn't have to look far.

Niklaus was now a ticking time-bomb. How long would his lucidity last?

* * *

He frowned at his phone as it buzzed, saw a text from Stefan Salvatore. He replied, slipping his phone back into his pocket, and followed Niklaus to Alaric Saltzman's studio-apartment. A lean shadow draped against the door, solemn expression firmly in place, hands in his pockets.

Stefan's eyes landed on Klaus, wasting no time with pleasantries. "I need your help… For my brother."

"Well, whatever it is will have to wait a tick. You see, I have an obligation to _my_ brother that requires my immediate attention."

"What has happened?" Elijah asked quietly. He had sent Elizabeth Forbes a text two nights ago, letting her know the state of things, to prepare her daughter for finding Giulia. He had had no word from anyone else.

"The werewolf, Hayley, bit Damon while he was trying to help get her into the cellar," Stefan said heavily. "She started to transform, went after Carol. He stopped her."

"How _heroic_ ," Klaus smirked. "I don't suppose heroism runs in the Salvatore family? It was very bold of your niece; to take her friend's place as sacrifice. A pity she burned herself; I would have made her a very beautiful corpse. A stake to the heart is by far a more pleasant death than burning to death. I'd know. People have been trying to kill me for a thousand years. You see, unlike _your_ family, Stefan, it is _duplicity_ that runs through our veins thicker than blood."

Elijah screamed, saw Stefan's shocked expression, and his last thought was of Giulia, laughing in bed, skin flushed and delicious, the feel of her muscles clamping down around him as she groaned and sighed, preening, the softness and heat and natural scent of her skin, her teeth nipping his ear and that tempting little silver ring through her nipple that elicited such exquisite reactions from her when he suckled and teased her.

Her kiss was the last thing he remembered, the exquisite ecstasy and relief of being deep inside her.

* * *

 **A.N.** : I need hardly ask…reviews, please!


	44. Big Girls Cry

**A.N.** : I'm loving the song 'Elastic Heart' by Sia. Very Giulia. And 'Big Girls Cry'. I'm probably late to Sia but _whatever_! By the way, how excited are we for _Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them_? I've been strong-armed into reading _The Cursed Child_ and so far I have been thrown back to my 14-year-old HP fanfic-reading days!

* * *

 **Dangerous Beauty**

 _44_

 _Big Girls Cry When Their Hearts are Breaking_

* * *

"Caroline – _Caroline!_ "

Liz hustled over to her daughter, staggered by how awful she looked. Hair limp, eyes shadowed heavily, cheeks drawn, her skin dull; they said vampires experienced heightened emotions. Whatever Caroline was feeling affected her entire body.

She was hysterical, still trying to get out of the house. Liz checked her watch; they had a few minutes until sunrise, until Sheila's spell lifted.

The Boarding House was quiet. It always was, but this was the pre-dawn quiet of a house full of sleeping people. If they hadn't managed to claim one of the seven bedrooms, they were camped out in the great-room, the kids making a slumber-party of the whole thing, just missing two crucial friends. Hayley had finally quieted in the cellar; Mason had stayed down there with her.

"Why isn't the spell lifting?" Caroline finally stopped, panting, half-collapsing against the front-door, wild-eyed and desperate.

"There's a couple minutes 'til sunrise," Liz said gently. "We'll be able to leave in a little while."

Caroline seemed to buckle under the agonising weight of her emotions. Her eyes were glazed with grief, with hysteria, tinged with sorrow.

Softly, she choked on a whisper, "I told her it's my turn to look after _her_."

"Giulia wouldn't have risked you, not for anything," Liz said. "Caroline… Elijah sent me a text in the night." Caroline sniffed, pushing tears away.

"What'd he say?" she sniffled.

"Sweetie… During the spell…Giulia turned into a vampire… She set fire to herself rather than let Klaus stake her," Liz said, more calmly than she felt. She had been treated to Gianna's friendship before she died; Liz had known Zach and Joshua Salvatore since the cradle. Their little girl – their clever, brave, dangerously loyal, wacky little girl…had burned alive.

Like the Gilberts' accident last summer, this crime-scene was one she dreaded approaching – but she had to, for Caroline. For Giulia.

As soon as the spell released them, Liz had to grab hold of Caroline, coax her into the car. Caroline was still frantic over – and disbelieving of – Elijah's text, but she sat in the passenger-seat of Liz's cruiser blinded by tears. The dawn was particularly bright and perfect, a gentle breeze, cloudless sky, warm but not breathless; and Caroline smelt death over the dry A.C. before they even found Giulia's pristine sapphire-blue _Beetle_ parked in the woods by the quarry. Liz's car had better suspension, and her lips parted as she drove down to the water's edge.

A triskele was burned into the dry grass, four bodies – one with a shattered ribcage, one headless, mauled beyond recognition as a corpse…

"My God," Liz breathed, putting the car in park, engaging the handbrake, staring. It looked…like the scene of a movie; an occult scene gone wrong. The burned triskele, the chalices glinting on a blood-spattered boulder, burn marks everywhere, the bloody corpses, the dismembered body and the bloody heart lying on the brittle brown grass.

It was surreal. Horrifying.

Caroline flung open her door, hurtling out of the car, and Liz followed, calling her name. Humidity and the scent of copper hit her; she raised a hand to her nose, wondering how Caroline could stand it; the smell of death was strong even to her, the sun starting to provoke the decaying of bodies.

A huge man had been rendered to bloody mulch, a mass of split bone and unrecognisable anatomy, scattered about; Liz lowered herself to squat over a femur, gnawed on, cracked open, the marrow gone. It looked like an animal had attacked and fed with a strength and ferocity that went beyond any normal coyote or wolf-attack. She recognised the woman, Jules, the werewolf who had kidnapped Caroline; tears had tracked through her makeup, now unnatural against her ashen skin, hazel eyes gazing unseeingly into the cloudless sky.

With a flicker of worry, Liz bent down, tucking Elena's sheet of long, dark hair from her face, touching two fingers to her throat. She felt no pulse; but Sheila had told them protection spells needed a little time to get the mojo going after a person died. Elena would be fine; but at the moment, she was still dead.

Finally, she took a deep breath, and walked over to Caroline. Something wasn't right.

Caroline had thrown her jacket over Giulia's torso, brought her head into her lap, was sobbing as she stroked Giulia's lovely dark hair away from her face. Giulia's long, strong legs were bare, unmarred, her fingertips as elegant as ever, her face…beautiful.

There was no sign anyone had been burned, no other corpses. Could Elijah have been misled?

It was only the charring around where Caroline cradled Giulia's head in her lap, the fact Giulia wore no clothes, the ash on the grass, disturbed by the breeze, that made Liz think…he was right. He had seen Giulia laugh as she threw herself into the flames; she had burned.

So why did she look… _perfect_?

Her heart seized, relief sweeping through her that Caroline hadn't had to find her best-friend, her _sister_ , like that. She had seen too many fatal fires. There was no person left, just…a crust in the twisted, blistered, blackened form of a human-being, unrecognisable.

"She's not dead, she's not dead! She can't be dead!" Caroline choked frantically, her hands shaking as she sobbed, stroking Giulia's thick dark hair, tears splattering onto Giulia's face, glittering in the sun. " _Mommy, she's not dead_!"

"Sweetheart…" There was nothing to say, nothing she _could_ say. Nothing she could do but sit down and cuddle her little girl, while the other, the one she had watched grow up, grow, over the last year, into a fierce, extraordinary, beautiful young woman, rested, lifeless, in her lap. Zach's little girl, his solace in the darkness, the irrepressible Giulia… _gone_.

Liz was around death and grieving loved-ones too often, knew how to compartmentalise her emotions too well…and it was she who noticed.

In the sunshine, Giulia's skin was getting warm. It looked… _healthy_ , glowing with life in a way no dead skin ever could.

And her chest was rising and falling. Slowly. Too slowly to notice if you weren't paying attention. And Caroline _wasn't_ , too upset.

Liz watched Giulia's chest rise…fall.

She touched her fingertips to Giulia's throat, felt…a very slow, thread heartbeat – getting stronger, getting faster.

Giulia was… _alive_?

Turned into a vampire; burned to death.

 _Alive_.

"Caroline," Liz said gently, drawing Caroline's shoulders back, trying to get her attention. " _Caroline_!"

"What?" Caroline choked tearfully.

"She's _breathing_ ," Liz said, gently and clearly. Caroline blinked, sniffled, confused, and _listened_ , staring intently at Giulia's chest. Giulia's chest rose, and she sighed softly, licking her lips, stretching luxuriously. Caroline sucked in a breath, choking on fresh tears of elation – and confusion.

Giulia yawned, preening, and her eyes cracked open.

"Caroline?"

"Giulia! Oh my god! You're okay! You're alive!"

Giulia blinked sleepily. "Am I?"

Caroline laughed tearfully, reaching down to hug Giulia fiercely.

Giulia groaned, struggling, and sat up, grass stuck to her bare skin, in her ashy hair. She peered curiously down at the blazer draped over her front, twisting so that she was strategically angled not to show anything, blinking bemusedly at them.

"Why am I… _indecent_?"

"I guess your clothes burned away," Liz said, wiping her cheeks. Giulia nodded.

"I never liked those jeans anyway," she grumbled. She glanced around her, eyes out of focus, distracted; she took a shuddering breath, blinking, startled, as she followed a bird's progress as it twittered through the air, jumping when the breeze rustled brown grass against her leg, sneezing delicately at the scent of death all around them, disturbed by the breeze. She turned her face upwards, bathing her face in sunlight.

"Are you okay?" Caroline sniffled, wiping her cheeks.

"Early days," Giulia murmured, frowning into the distance, her features smoothing over, thoughtful, curious. Liz glanced up, and thought she saw a shadow flicker across the quarry in the trees, a slash of darkness in the glowing green. Giulia reached for the jacket, folded neatly beside her, took a pearl ring – her mother's pearl ring – and pushed it over her knuckle, stretching out her long fingers.

"I'll go get you a blanket," Liz said, climbing off the ground, and found a blanket in the trunk, neatly folded. Caroline was chattering excitedly, nearing hysteria again.

" – are you okay? Do you need –? Do you need _blood_?"

Giulia looked thoughtful. "I don't… _think_ so." She swiped her tongue over her teeth. Caroline peered closely at her as Giulia squinted in the sunlight.

"Is it too bright? Do you need sunglasses? Are you sure you're not transitioning?"

"Transitioning into what?"

"Mothra. What do you think?!" Caroline blurted impatiently, as Liz draped the blanket around her shoulders.

"I don't feel like I did before," Giulia said slowly. "Not fidgety, just more… _myself_ than usual." She sighed, rolling her neck, swiping her tongue over her teeth again. "Still have fangs, though."

"You do? But you don't think you need blood…?"

"No," Giulia murmured, squinting in the sunlight as it shimmered off the quarry.

"Okay, if you were a vampire, you'd _definitely_ know you want blood," Caroline said plainly. "But you have _fangs_ still? How weird." Giulia nodded, frowning thoughtfully.

"Well, since we know you're – _alive_ – we should probably get you and Elena back to the Boarding House," Liz said. "I'll need to run the rest of this through the station. And the Council." Giulia rose from the ground, Caroline hovering protectively.

"Would you mind waiting for me before you involve the Council?" Giulia asked, and Liz glanced at her, thought for a moment, and nodded with a gentle smile. She knew Giulia was guiding the Council, very subtly, compelling via Damon or suggesting members move on to other interests, greater concerns. Those who were…backward. Judgemental, small-minded, self-interested.

It was Giulia's hope, and for Caroline's sake it was Liz's too, that the Council could serve to _help_ the supernatural survive in Mystic Falls – and protect the town in turn. This was the twenty-first century. Liz didn't want her daughter's life defined by the prejudice of others. Mystic Falls was Caroline's home; she should always be welcome here. And she had put too much into the town as a human teenager not to care about how she could help as a vampire, to keep it safe from others who made things go bump in the night. She glanced back at the carnage left behind by _Klaus_.

"I'll get Mason to jog out here and make the call as cover," Liz said. "You two should get out of here, and take Elena with you."

"I can't believe she's still not awake yet," Caroline sighed, shaking her head. Liz watched, as Caroline lifted Elena effortlessly in a fireman's hold, walking through the woods to Giulia's _Beetle_ , Elena's sheet of hair swaying.

Giulia was alive.

Liz breathed an enormous sigh of relief.

She hadn't had the time to let herself get worked up and upset about Giulia's gruesome death before discovering that Giulia was actually alive.

But Elijah had seen her transition into a vampire. Saw her fling herself, laughing, into the flames…

Had he?

Klaus had had two witches… Was it possible Elijah had been forced to see that?

But the charring… Beneath her feet, the grass was burned away to the dirt. _Someone_ had burned there.

Was it possible Giulia had survived burning? Survived being turned into a vampire? _How_?

* * *

"Are you sure you're okay?" Caroline asked, anxious, fidgety, tear-streaked, her voice still thick with emotion, eyes red-rimmed and her cheeks wan.

Giulia…felt _extraordinary_. Like waking from the loveliest, deepest sleep, so well-rested it was ridiculous. She could have curled up on the burned grass for hours longer, basking in the sun, if she hadn't been woken by salty tears falling with the force of slaps against her face. It had felt like that, at least…

The world was… _alive_.

Almost…as intoxicating and surreally beautiful as her brief afterlife as a vampire, entranced by the cosmos above… Colours were more vibrant, unusual, Caroline had never told her how exquisite different hues were, colours she had never even known existed, never seen in nature until now. She had heard the heartbeat as a bird flew overhead, its song so utterly pure and resonant on the breeze so full of scents she had sneezed. She felt the sun caressing her skin, the breeze toyed with her hair, which made her shiver, and the fabric of the blanket rubbed against her skin, itchy but tantalising. Her nipple-ring was gone, burned away, she felt bereft without it, off-kilter. Her tongue felt too thick for her mouth, the addition of _fangs_ alien. She could _feel_ sounds, reverberating on the air, colours were more exquisite than she had ever known, textures were unusual against her skin, her fingertips itching to _touch_ , every step released scents from the earth that made her sway.

It was a heady, delicious, almost overpowering sensation, drugging. Utterly mesmerising.

Every step sent vibrations through her body.

It was _titillating_.

"I feel…fabulous," Giulia said honestly. Even her own voice sounded different to her ears – lower, softer. She found the key to her car tucked on top of the rear wheel, unlocking the car. Caroline awkwardly navigated Elena into the backseat, and they climbed in, Giulia arranging the blanket strategically, using her seatbelt to keep it in place as she turned the key in the ignition. She sighed, shoulders relaxing utterly, swept away by the sound of the Beetle's engine. There was no sound like it – even to human ears it had been blissful; to her new ears, it was incomparable. She put the car in gear, listening to everything clicking and churning into place, and drove off. Bare-armed, squinting in the sunshine, her stomach grumbled as they putt-putted toward downtown, Caroline sat turned in her seat, asking over and over whether Giulia thought she should be driving, did she feel okay, and Giulia could sense she was biting her tongue from asking things she knew she would have to face up to later, when Caroline's relief faded and her ire engulfed her.

"I am actually hungry, though," Giulia said thoughtfully, and her stomach growled in evidence.

"What do you want – A-negative, there might be an AB positive?" Caroline asked.

"Donuts," Giulia said thoughtfully, indicating and turning, pulling off a perfect parallel-park right out front of the donut-shop.

"You can't go in there like that!" Caroline blurted, eyes popping.

"Of course not!" Giulia blinked at her. She opened the glove-compartment. "You're going. There's concealer and dry-shampoo in there." Caroline fluttered her eyelashes in surprise, then flicked open a compact mirror from Giulia's glove-compartment, gasping in horror. She looked awful; Giulia felt fantastic. Caroline fussed with her hair, dabbed on and blended in some peachy colour-correcting balm before grabbing her wallet and darting out of the car. Giulia waited, and, curious, lifted the compact-mirror to her face, peeling her lips back from her teeth.

No fangs that she could see, but she could _feel_ them.

She didn't look like she'd been burned alive last night.

But she remembered it. Still could feel that pain if she dwelled on it. Laughing at Klaus' tantrum was her last memory before she had… _died_ … She'd remembered the heat, the inferno Elijah created when he delved between her thighs, and wished he could be there with her.

She wanted him with her now. It wasn't her emotions she was struggling with… She had thought this _might_ work and her satisfaction was dimmed only by Caroline's delayed-reaction grief and anger bound to make its appearance known soon – and her grief that Elijah was no longer a part of her life. Was he already daggered?

And her discomfort – he was no longer around to give her a hand, when she needed it most. It wasn't bloodlust she was struggling from; her most overwhelming sensation was… _hypersensitivity_. Everything was heightened…including _lust_ , and her sensitivity to certain things.

Waking in that sunlight, she could have preened, expecting Elijah to stir beside her, and grin lazily as he descended between her thighs.

Even the vision had her rubbing her thighs together, wincing in discomfort, nipples pulling painfully tight as she bit her lip, the weave of the blanket tickling over her nipples, breath going shallow as the heat of the sun magnified through the window, caressing her skin like hands, and she fidgeted, whimpering in the seat, gripping the steering-wheel, overwhelmed. Paralysed by her insatiate lust. Her _need_ …for Elijah.

Panting in the driver's seat, she jumped hissed as the passenger-door burst open, and Caroline stared at her, eyes wide. The scent of melting sugar, chocolate-chips, strawberry-glaze and freshly-fried donuts hit her like an anvil, and she shook her head, settling.

"Are you okay?" Caroline asked, handing her a coffee. Giulia took it, her hand shaking slightly, her body on overdrive, panting softly, wincing as she tightened the blanket around her to prevent it slipping; Caroline opened the box of donuts, the scent got stronger, Giulia's stomach rumbled, and she let out a soft pant, shaking her head, her hands shaking.

"I – I'm..."

" _Horny_ ," Caroline said, giving her a look. "I have heightened senses, you know."

"So do I," Giulia groaned, gripping the steering-wheel so she didn't squeeze the cup of coffee and spill it all over herself. Her leg jigged, and it was…unbearable. She needed – she wanted _Elijah_ , and her heart squeezed, shutting down, grief, the grief of unsatisfied lust, of loneliness, of heartbreak, pure, desolating heartbreak, made her eyes burn with tears, choking on a sob.

Elijah.

She wanted to throw off this scratchy, infuriating blanket, climb into her bed with its nine-hundred-threat-count Egyptian cotton sheets, and have Elijah's help sorting herself out – then curl up and rock herself to sleep as she bawled.

He was _gone_.

It wasn't enough – they hadn't had long enough.

Now he was gone.

She fought a swell of nausea rising as she panted, eyes burning as tears threatened, salty, searing her skin like acid, tickling her chin. She gripped the steering-wheel and fidgeted, whimpering in pain and loss, _grief_ , eyes frantic, distracted as they flicked around.

"Hey," Caroline whispered, navigating Giulia away from the steering-wheel, into an uncomfortable hug that nevertheless broke through her attack, grounding her gently in a way only the scent of Caroline's perfume and her laundry-detergent could, calm and soothing, _home_. The pleasant coolness of her embrace in the humid car.

" _What did I do_?" Giulia whispered, eyes unseeing, darting, filled with tears, as she clutched at Caroline, horrified with herself, full of…regret. Grief. _Second-guesses_ …

She had told Elijah to martyr himself, to _allow_ Klaus to dagger him. So she could find his family. And then she had gone to her death, without a second thought. She had set things in place in the event it hadn't worked, but…she had gone on faith. Faith in the secrets kept from her. A gut-instinct.

But he didn't know that.

What if…what if he broke his word?

Had he killed Klaus?

She didn't…she didn't want Elijah to be… _dead_.

Gone.

For as long as it took her.

But she wanted to _live_.

"It's okay," Caroline told her gently, hugging her fiercely. "It's okay, whatever it is. You're okay."

"I don't know if I will be," Giulia whispered softly. She wanted her Elijah. Why had she ever suggested her plan? Why would he put that faith in her? _Had_ he? For all he knew, she was gone; he had no need to keep his promise to a dead girl.

"You will," Caroline assured her. But she wanted Elijah. She had never known how huge her heart was – it felt like it weighed six tons, and it sank to her toes, throbbing with pain, it seemed to moan _Elijah_ …

She would see him again.

Whatever had happened to her, whatever she was, she had survived death. Returned stronger.

She suspected who might know the reason for that, the answers to questions she had been stockpiling, and she sniffed, gently disentangling herself from Caroline, her stomach gently rumbling, hungry. She sighed heavily, took the donut box from Caroline and opened it, digging out her favourite, taking a distracted bite, blinking in surprise at the explosion of flavours. Heightened taste, too. She savoured the donut, ruminating on her heart squeezing in her chest, too big for her ribcage, pummelled and twisted by grief. She sniffed, rubbed her face, and put her car in gear, driving off.

"Aren't we going back to the Boarding House?" Caroline asked, as Giulia drove off.

"Oh, do we need to?"

"Um… _Elena_ ," Caroline said. "And everyone will want to know you're okay, too."

"Did they think I wasn't?" Giulia asked, surprised.

"You disappeared with Elena," Caroline said, munching on her donut, giving Giulia an accusatory look. The storm was brewing, Giulia could see. But Caroline had had road-safety drilled into her, sobbed reading _Collision Course_ , and would never distract Giulia while she was driving, just to yell at her about strutting to her death.

"Don't make a big deal about it," Giulia said, glancing at Caroline. "Only you and Liz, Elena and Elijah know what happened last night…that sounds rather kinky."

"What _did_ happen last night? And you're forgetting Klaus, he was there too, right? I could smell…all kinds of things at the quarry," Caroline said, frowning thoughtfully.

"Me, too," Giulia said softly, internalising her smirk. She could smell the lingering scent of Klaus' terror and pain imprinted on the quarry. She took a turn, heading toward the Boarding House.

" _So_! What happened?" Caroline prompted.

"Last night I turned into a vampire," Giulia said mildly. "I went into the flames, and I was dead. And then I wasn't."

"I can't believe you… _burned_ yourself alive," Caroline sighed, shaking her head, her limp curls swaying. She was on the verge, Giulia could sense it. "That's _psychotic_ , you know?!"

"I wanted to take the satisfaction of killing me away from Klaus," Giulia said, shrugging. "He would've enjoyed it too much. Sadistic. He shoved his hand into Jules' chest and ripped her heart out, he had a stake to kill me; I imagine he used his fangs to drain Elena… Very phallic… _penetrating_ … A classic sign of impotence."

"That's more than I needed to know," Caroline said, blinking.

"And impotence is a physical manifestation of deeper psychological issues," Giulia continued, smirking to herself as Caroline sighed impatiently. "I'm just saying… Klaus is a sexual sadist; there was no way I was going to allow _my_ death to get him off." Giulia shuddered at the very idea. For her sake as well as Elijah's she had wanted to make sure Klaus didn't look back on the ritual with satisfaction – that he would look back, and regret, and know that that was the beginning fo the end. And utterly self-inflicted.

He was the architect of his own fate.

For a thousand years, Klaus had managed to hide behind the protection the mother he murdered had given him.

Now he had stripped that away.

And Giulia knew he would live to regret it…

…if Elijah hadn't killed him outright.

She still wondered if Elijah believed Klaus deserved inescapable death, rather than unending torture as punishment for all his crimes against his family.

But wouldn't he have killed Klaus then and there, at the quarry, while Klaus was at his most vulnerable?

Yes.

He was keeping his word to her.

"That's gross," Caroline crinkled her nose. "Did I see Jules? I thought I recognised her."

"Yeah, that was her," Giulia said quietly.

"Who was the – _blob_? There was no head or…"

"That was Klaus' witch. I don't know his name," Giulia said sadly. "Greta must have died when she attacked you."

"Well…good," Caroline sighed. "I mean – her dad and brother died trying to save her. She shouldn't have to live knowing that."

"I don't know that she would've cared," Giulia mused. A person like Klaus would always have an affinity for finding people like him – self-serving, arrogant, power-hungry – and convincing them to join whatever cause he wanted. A sociopath. A true cult-leader.

Caroline jumped, and Giulia frowned in annoyance, as a huge gasp exploded from the backseat, Elena's limbs flying as she flung herself around, wild-eyed, shuddering gasps.

"Stop flailing," Giulia frowned. "The upholstery's fragile."

"How do you feel?" Caroline asked, offering Elena the box of donuts, beaming. Giulia frowned, reaching back to take her favourite before Elena could.

"I feel fine… I feel _fine_!" Elena gasped, panting for breath, hand fluttering to her throat, unmarked but stained with dried blood. She gasped in relief, collapsing against her seat, hands to her face. Giulia glanced in her rear-view mirror, noticing Elena looked relieved, alarmed, bewildered, glancing out of the windows. "Where are we going?"

"The Boarding House," Caroline told her. "Everyone will be so worried."

"Is Klaus dead?"

"I don't think so," Caroline said, shrugging. "But you're not either, so it's okay."

Giulia frowned in the rear-view mirror, shaking her head in disbelief. "I'm fine too, by the way," she said drily. Elena glanced at her, expression falling.

"Oh my God… Giulia… I saw you burn… How are you _alive_?"

"Sheer brilliance," Giulia said. She rolled her eyes to herself, not in the least bit surprised she had been an afterthought that needed a prompt.

"Why did you do it?" Elena asked. "Klaus has lifted the curse now, he'll be a hybrid."

"Yes," Giulia chuckled.

"Why is that funny? I _knew_ you were working for him!" Elena's tone was tart, poisonous. Giulia scoffed, amazed. Her, work for _Klaus_?!

"Why would Giulia work for Klaus?" Caroline frowned. "She – didn't want anyone else having to be the vampire sacrifice."

"That's why you get the good bourbon," Giulia smiled, patting her friend's knee delicately.

"Why aren't you more worried Klaus is still alive?"

"Stefan and Damon wanted Klaus dead for want of a better plan to keep Elena safe from the sacrifice," Giulia said, shrugging. "She's safe, ergo… No need to kill Klaus. And there's more going on than just what they wanted."

"Elijah," Elena scowled, her expression very snide, disdainful.

"It's his family, his brother to punish – or kill," Giulia said softly. She hoped he would do neither; now that she was… _okay_ …she needed him to keep his word to her. To take a leap of faith in her, the same way she had.

* * *

Damon was dying.

She had smelled it first, the sickly-sweet scent of rotting meat where the infection was attacking his body at the sight of his bite. He called it a 'nip', and Giulia had stared at it, blank-faced, appalled, angry.

She had not invited Hayley into her home; but she had attacked Damon, doing the honourable thing protecting Carol when the moon had risen, full and glowing silver, affecting only the uninvited guest who had previously helped engineer the failed kidnapping of Tyler and Caroline. Hayley had no ring to protect her from the moonlight; she had bitten Damon when she started to transform, and he helped protect Carol and get the wolf-bitch into the cellar.

Giulia reflected on the sacrifice and believed she might have preferred Hayley to meet her death on the Boulder, heart torn from her pulverised ribcage. At least Jules would have had the sense to leave town, knowing she wasn't needed – or liked. But Hayley had strolled from the cellar, half-draped in an old blanket, hair a mess, stinking of sweat and pain, gazing demurely through her lashes and smirking subtly at Mason, who had bundled her up in one of his shirts and a spare pair of jeans and driven off with her, Carol and an irritated Tyler, his eyes burning holes into the back of Hayley's head, realising what Giulia had last night that Hayley had kept Mason busy so he and Caroline could be targeted by Klaus' minions.

The newly-unified Somers-Saltzman clan had made their exit as soon as they could, as soon as Stefan would let go of Elena, awoken from what Sheila Bennett had called 'mystical Benadryl' to keep him complacent overnight, while the rest of them tried not to worry, and failed at getting any sleep, with the werewolf in the basement, the panicked vampire in the library and the sociopathic Original on the doorstep performing a blood-sacrifice.

Jenna hadn't stopped hugging Elena for twenty minutes, Jeremy wound around them both, Ric looking relieved, exhausted, but happy. He had given Giulia an odd look as she slipped upstairs unnoticed, pulling some clothes she had outgrown from her old closet. She had sat on the bed, just breathing in the lingering scent of Elijah everywhere there. Her stomach flipped, and her heart squeezed painfully, imagining how it would be to walk into her own home again. Without him.

Slowly, the house had emptied, leaving only a gentle warmth and quiet that Giulia barely remembered, the kind of cosy warmth that inspired lazy afternoons playing catch with a baseball in the gardens with her dad, baseball-caps on, talking about her homework, card-games after sunset with burgers and swing music playing on the old gramophone.

She had been remembering things, more and more clearly, over the course of the day. Her favourite songs, gazing at the stars, had concealed to any observer how she was reacting emotionally to her transition – to the memories fighting for her attention.

Damon had compelled her years ago.

To forget finding photograph albums…

She remembered being attacked in the gardens by the old rabbit-hutches, the argument between Damon and Stefan, his face smeared with blood, after Damon had found and healed her, crying about Daffodil and Rumball. She remembered Stefan's grief; her father's terror; Damon's anger. She remembered Damon compelling her dad to calm down, taking a knee in front of Giulia to smile, tickle her chin playfully, smiling, his eyes more alarmed than the smile let on.

"You're alright, little girl," he promised, smiling, his eyes darting over her face, taking in every inch of her appearance, pausing on her throat. She sniffled, choking, and wiped her face on her arm, her lower-lip wobbling.

"He killed Daffodil and Rumball," she choked, not in the slightest bit upset Stefan had taken a chunk out of her throat. She could still taste the coppery tang of Damon's blood on her tongue, and…felt warm inside because of it, not tired from running around with a soccer-ball with Tyler earlier.

"I know, honey," Damon sighed, looking relieved. "He didn't mean to. And he didn't mean to hurt you. He should've known better than to feed around here, he gets lost in his dinner and can't see straight." Giulia sniffled.

"Daffodil and Rumball were _my_ responsibility," Giulia hiccoughed, wiping her eyes again. "Daddy said I had to l-look after th-them and m-make sure I fed them and cl-cleaned their c-cages and let them r-run around f-for exercise."

"I know. And you took very good care of them," Damon said gently, reaching out to wipe the tears from her cheeks. "Why don't you go with Daddy and get cleaned up, hm?"

"What about the funeral?"

"F- _Funeral_?"

"For Daffodil and Rumball. They need closure."

A week after the funeral for Daffodil and Rumball, Giulia could always remember Tyler helping her dig up the shoebox to make sure they were okay.

She sat in the still warmth of her old bedroom and just thought, memories sweeping over her. Some very old – some recently unearthed under the mire of compulsion.

Giulia had never known she had ever been compelled, and she supposed that was the way her dad and Damon had always wanted it. She had asked too many questions, and they hadn't wanted her remembering Stefan had nearly killed her. Hadn't wanted her growing up with that _fear_.

There weren't too many memories, though, and none from her time with Elijah; he would never have compelled her. But Damon had, so she would forget she had seen albums full of photographs it was difficult to explain away. Pictures of her mother with a baby. Had she had an older-sibling? No-one would have had to compel her to forget someone she had lost before her first true memories, the earliest of which she remembered from when she was four years old.

In her heart she knew that wasn't the case.

But she couldn't bear to ask.

There were some things that she knew she was better off not knowing. She had not wanted to dig into why the Gilbert device had affected her, because she was afraid the answer would change too much irreparably. Sometimes it was better not to know your own true nature.

Giulia didn't know what she was – only that she was alive, had heightened senses and fangs, but no lust for blood – but…she knew someone who could tell her how she had come to be what she was. The beginning of it, anyway. She had died, transitioned, and then died again as a vampire. By all accounts, she should be ash.

She was not the Khaleesi, disappointingly she had no dragons – but Giulia believed she would have been a far superior empress than the Targaryen. She actually went out and did things herself, she didn't rely on everyone else to do have ideas and execute them for her.

And that was why she had decided it had to be her who offered herself up as sacrifice. Sheila had told her that acts like that – boldly going to one's death, in place of another, when the outcome was certain – had their own magic.

Like Harry in the Forbidden Forest.

 _Quicker and easier than falling asleep_ , Sirius had told him, and Giulia was glad she didn't feel a breath of Caroline or Tyler or Caroline or anyone anywhere near her last-night, much as she would have liked to believe her dad and her mother were there striding beside her.

It was the game, of course. Giulia knew the moment they went public with their relationship that Klaus would home in on Giulia as the one thing left to torture his brother with. So she had been prepared for distractions he would try to tempt her with, Caroline and Tyler – she had outwitted him weeks ago, and had been prepared to die, to take the place of her friends, to allow Klaus to kill her so that he believed he was winning, to take the place of some faceless, nameless stranger he might otherwise have used. A single selfless act.

Well, she hadn't stayed dead, but if she had, she'd have earned that VIP fast-pass through Peter's gate.

As it was, she had done what no-one else would have ever dared do, sacrificed herself absolutely with no real thought of her own survival. Just a strange gut instinct she had been refusing to listen to the last few months, ignoring her reaction to the Gilbert device, the fact that she felt…like she had been getting _stronger_. She trained, yes, and hard, she went to the gym four times a week, took MMA and dance lessons, giving her superior agility and flexibility, she was honed and trained, but…she shouldn't have been able to do so much damage to those werewolves the night they took Caroline. Should she? They were supernatural; training could only account for so much.

Perhaps she was just trying to build her case – to justify what she had done, striding to her death. Because who would ever believe she had willingly just sacrificed herself? She wasn't suicidal; she loved her life. She loved her friends, she loved school, she loved…she loved Elijah.

Why wouldn't she want to be here when he woke again, no matter how long it took her to pull that dagger out of his chest?

She was sore for him now; she wanted him so badly she felt like someone had used a teaspoon coated in some kind of flesh-eating bacteria to scoop out her heart, taking their time, until nothing remained but the seared, scalded, gaping chasm of her empty ribcage.

Vampires felt their emotions heightened. Their bloodlust, too.

Giulia was shivering from lust, but it was entirely the sexual kind, the scent of Elijah in the room and the memories of wrecking her bridesmaid's dress in here on Jenna and Ric's wedding-night making her squirm, panting, and grimace, pained by her emptiness.

She wanted him back.

Giulia wanted Elijah back here with her, cloistered in her huge bed at home, she wanted to stay there with him until she could no longer walk.

She hadn't been scared. Just regretful. If it _hadn't_ worked… Well, it had. That was the only thing that mattered, and any argument someone – Caroline, Damon – could bring up was made moot by that fact. Giulia would never have risked never seeing them again, if she didn't think something magnificent had to happen to her.

Turning into a vampire had felt like she was starting to shed her old skin, as if her body was starting to finally settle and be itself, rather than the itchy, uncomfortable tightness she had been feeling since Sheila healed her from the werewolves' torture, only Elijah able to quell the feeling with intense fucking. But turning into a vampire hadn't been enough, that wasn't who she was. A vampire wasn't what she was meant to be. She had been born something…else.

Waking up this morning, she had felt relaxed, _herself_ , for the first time in ages. Rested, comfortable in her own skin, as if she had woken from the most intense orgasms, preening and delighted, relaxed. Herself. Like Tyler had when he transformed into a werewolf, Giulia felt as if she had shed something constricting, something preventing her from being what she was meant to be.

What that was, she had no idea, but she felt better than she had in ages, and it felt…right. No bloodlust, but she was still nearsighted and her stomach grumbled, hungry again. She was…Giulia. The rest didn't matter. She had survived the sacrifice, and had survived Klaus.

She would survive her separation from Elijah; she wouldn't allow herself not to. She was going…to soar. Conquer. She was going to have adventures, a life worth telling someone about.

A life worth sacrificing Elijah's presence in it.

She believed she had…emerged from a cocoon of sorts, had risen from the ashes of her sacrifice stronger, more herself than she had ever been. She had emerged the person she was meant to be. Giulia happened to believe things happened for a reason. Her family, the Salvatores, were unusually intertwined with the Original family. Stefan, in the 1920s, with Rebekah and Klaus in Chicago; Damon, spending the 1970s in London and Manhattan with Willem and Gyda; her ancestresses Carafina and Veronica sharing Isak, turned by him, in 1490s Rome. Even Elijah's Lucrezia had been a Salvatore, her biography said, daughter of a very wealthy nobleman whose lineage went back to the Roman Empire, not only one of the most beautiful and powerful women of Medieval Europe but mother to one and guardian to another.

Elijah was still sore for her to this day. Giulia wondered if he'd dream of her.

The children of Mikael and Esther had been bound with the Salvatore family since almost their very beginning.

And there was no such thing as a coincidence.

It wasn't just a blip in Emily's magic that had affected Giulia, when a device specifically engineered to debilitate the supernatural had hurt her. There was a reason why Damon, who never let anyone, even his own brother, close, had been so close with her when she was little. It wasn't _chance_ that Damon had been in Mystic Falls when Giulia was born.

There were questions that she could ask, answers she wasn't sure she wanted – because when she knew them, others would demand them of her. How had she survived the sacrifice? What was she? What did it _mean_?

She had fangs, but no bloodlust. She was _strong_. She had heightened senses and it seemed to her in the hour she sat in her old room that she was suffering hypersensitivity – a supernatural _lust_. Her emotions were stronger, but she had always had an affinity for compartmentalising, and letting most things go that she deemed unworthy of her time and attention. As a vampire she had survived death by fire – had healed from it, utterly rejuvenated, skin like a baby's ass, but still scarred from her tomboyish, very athletic childhood. But she also still needed reading-glasses, as she found out, trying to read the titles of books she had left behind on the shelf. She felt warmer than she ever usually was, and her stomach grumbled again, hungry still after four donuts. She hadn't had a proper breakfast; dinner seemed a long time ago.

A heightened metabolism, warm to the touch, fangs, hypersensitivity, ridiculously farsighted but she still needed glasses to read, and her lust was almost paralysing. She sat on her bed, and sighed heavily, dropping her head into her hands, distracted by the feeling of her hair sifting over her fingertips, the scent of the ash in her hair, sneezing delicately at the remembered scent of Klaus' rage and confusion. Her lips twitched. He was in for quite a ride.

She blinked, sat up, and pulled her phone from her bag, where she had stashed it last night: she thoughtfully worded a text, and sent it off into the ether.

And she remembered how quiet it was: she hadn't seen hide nor hair of Cara, Ashlyn or the others, not even Kol. But they'd know the drill; they had all known Elijah and his extended family for long enough to realise what the score-card probably looked at by now. If Elijah hadn't followed her home, well… They had lives of their own to get back to, and had to figure out how to do that without Elijah in them. She felt badly for Ashlyn, whose only true parental figure, really, was Elijah. Cara was all very well as the psychotic auntie who kept you up trampolining until three a.m. and teased you about boys, took you toconcertsand snuck you into clubs – but as far as parents went, orphaned Ashlyn had Elijah.

And Giulia had been instrumental in taking him away from her. Ashlyn was sixteen years old; this was probably one of the most crucial times in her life where having a wise influence like Elijah was going to be very important. And Giulia had taken – no. _Klaus_ had taken him from her, ripped her dad away from her. The thing was, Ashlyn was surrounded by people who adored her, she had Jeremy… And Giulia knew from personal experience that one cuddle from Jeremy Gilbert could right a multitude of wrongs.

She pulled herself reluctantly from the bed still infused with Elijah's scent, and shirked off the blanket Liz had given her, stepping into the shower, washing away the night, the scent of ash and slaughter. Her skin picked up every tiny drop, and she panted and fumbled with the knobs to stop the water-flow as it pummelled her skin, hitting every spot as she had lathered up her front, catching on her piercing, tickling around it, she had rocked on her toes as the jet had hit her lower. _Baths from now on_ , she thought, alarmed, and reached for a towel with shaking hands.

Giulia had no bloodlust, she hadn't even thought of blood since last night, pulling the blood-bag from her pocket. It had been a means to an end. No, she suffered from plain, ordinary – heightened, supernatural – sexual lust.

Possibly it was just the reaction of her new senses heightening her already sexual nature. Unused to her new sensitivity… She would adjust, just as Caroline had.

She dressed in the clothes she had pulled from her old closet, long outgrown, and got dressed, letting her hair dry naturally. The coolness of her hair was welcome in the sultry warmth of the house.

She sighed and let herself out of her room, traipsing down the corridor with new eyes – literally. She noticed things she never had in the textures and colours of the house. It was moodier, the stain on the wood was dull, she could smell dust _everywhere_ , the paintings seemed to be sobbing, in need of urgent restoration. She could hear soft scurryings in the walls, and the scent of damp from the cellar made her nose twitch. It was an old house, she knew. But she felt…she could do better. Make this place better. Make it into something she could be proud of, even if she hated it.

Stefan appeared in the hallway, frowning bemusedly at the sound of her approach.

* * *

 **A.N.** : Y'know…I could actually see Elijah and Caroline together – in a world where Giulia doesn't exist, of course! I've been reading the gossip that they're considering bringing TVD characters into The Originals – the show doesn't _need_ Nina Dobrev, I hope the universe is listening to me! Even if she'd only appear as Katerina.


	45. The Breaking of the Fellowship

**A.N.** : I hope you're all ready for this. The very last chapter of _Dangerous Beauty_ … Thank you all for sticking with Giulia for so long.

* * *

 **Dangerous Beauty**

 _45_

 _The Breaking of the Fellowship_

* * *

"Giulia…?"

" _Yes_?"

"I – thought… I thought I was imagining things," Stefan said haltingly. And then he gave her a blazing grin, grabbing her. He pulled her into a hug that thoroughly set Giulia off-kilter. They were _huggers_ , now? "We thought you were dead. When you disappeared…"

"Not dead," Giulia shrugged awkwardly, still stuck in the death-grip hug Stefan was squeezing her into.

"Good," he half-laughed. "Good – that's… That's amazing. And – you'll be able to convince him…"

"Convince who of what?"

"Damon. Of fighting to survive," Stefan said quietly, his grin fading. His hazel eyes were troubled, he bit his lip, and he gave her an earnestly sorrowful look, as he said, "Hayley bit Damon last night."

Giulia froze, hatred crystallising in her veins like ice. "She did?"

"Mason and Tyler had their rings, but when the moon rose, Hayley started to turn. Damon jumped in front of her before she could attack Carol… He helped Mason get her into the cellar, but…"

"But she nipped him," Giulia said quietly.

"He poured a glass of his favourite bourbon and stood in front of the window with his ring off this morning," Stefan said, his features tightening. "He doesn't…know you're alive. He thinks you had your heart ripped out last-night by Klaus, and he was too distracted by worrying about Elena to stop you. And…with your dad…he doesn't think he's worthy of surviving this. Would you talk to him?"

"He knows I'm dead and if the hallucinations have started, he might just think I'm a figment of his imagination," Giulia said quietly. She knew from experience that the venom dug out the most debilitating memories a vampire had ever suffered.

"Please…just talk to him. Convince him not to give up. I've asked Sheila and Bonnie to look into something, anything, a spell, a cure–"

"You don't need witches," Giulia said quietly, glancing at Stefan, her conversation with Willem replaying through her head, the flirting, the facts, the things left unsaid to keep the peace while they started to build a friendship.

"You know about werewolf-bites?"

"Tyler bit Elijah his first transformation," Giulia said quietly. "He's an Original and so can't die from it… But he still suffered through it. Damon will be in debilitating pain, reliving his worst memories. The ones that fashioned the person he is… But there is a cure."

"Ric searched through Isobel's research, he couldn't find any hint of a cure existing."

"It would be hunted to extinction if anyone knew," Giulia said certainly. "Vampires everywhere would want it."

"Yeah," Stefan sighed heavily. "I know I'd do anything for a cure for Damon." Giulia glanced sharply at him.

"Do you mean that?" she asked.

"Of course."

"You're willing to do whatever you have to, no matter the cost?" she prompted.

"Yes." Giulia eyed him carefully. "Giulia…what is it? What is the cure?"

"You need Klaus' blood."

" _Klaus_?"

Giulia nodded. Stefan looked stunned, then horrified. "He could be halfway across the continent by now."

"He's still here," Giulia said with certainty. "He's probably still struggling to regain control."

"Regain control – the full-moon's come and gone."

"He's a hybrid; the werewolf in him isn't bound to the moon's cycle," Giulia told him gently. "You saw Hayley transformed last-night?"

"Yeah," Stefan said, stifling a shiver. "I saw her… I can't imagine Tyler having to go through that."

"A werewolf not bound to the full-moon, utterly rabid, suffering that _pain_ , unable to fully transform because he is also a vampire and keeps healing… Mindless, out-of-control, combined with a vampire's bloodlust," Giulia said softly. "That is Klaus, now. He didn't know what he was getting himself into, releasing himself from his mother's spell."

Stefan gazed at her, frowning thoughtfully. "You know a lot about him… Elijah really trusted you with his family's secrets." Giulia shrugged delicately; he hadn't sounded accusatory or disbelieving…it was like he had finally realised…she and Elijah had something very real, very _true_.

"We trusted each other," Giulia said quietly. She exhaled softly. "Klaus won't leave. When he manages to resurface, he'll remember everything… He'll know Elijah tried to kill him…"

"How can you be sure he did?" Stefan asked, frowning. "You were…weren't you dead?"

"I could smell it," Giulia said softly. "I could smell Elijah's grief, Klaus' terror and anger, his blood. Elijah tried to kill him… And Klaus can only kill him with what he's left in Ric's studio for safekeeping."

"A silver-dagger," Stefan said softly.

"Klaus only had three. One for him, one for Kol, one for Elijah. But they've never worked on Klaus… And I've stolen and hidden the two he gave to Damon and Hayley," Giulia said.

"I thought the Martin witches tried to use the dagger against Elijah."

"Who do you think gave it to them, tried to convince them to kill Elijah so Klaus could take Elijah's allies from him?" Giulia sighed.

"Hayley," Stefan sighed, shaking his head. "And she bit Damon."

"I should just kill her now," Giulia said thoughtfully. "She's only good for one thing." Stefan's lips twitched.

"And if Klaus has already 'resurfaced'?"

"Hang on," Giulia said softly, pulling her phone out. She opened an App, tapping away, and showed Stefan the screen. She had all her friends' phones tracked on hers. Made things simpler, made sure she didn't deplete Sheila's strength asking for a draining Locator Spell when her power was needed for more dangerous moments. "They've managed to get all the way into the National Park. That's away from any hiking trails or campsites…Elijah's led him away from anyone Klaus can turn into mincemeat. He's not himself yet."

"I have to wait," Stefan said quietly. Giulia shrugged.

"What you said…about being willing to do anything to save Damon? I hope you really mean it…because Klaus will force you to do things that go against everything you are," Giulia said quietly.

"Damon's not dying today," Stefan said, with certainty. He swallowed, sighed, and glanced at Giulia, his expression softening. "I'm glad you're okay. I know…we've never been close…and…the way I've treated you… I should never have made you believe I'd chosen Elena over you, even when I… I did. I know it. I forfeited my chance to…bond with you, to be your friend, when I lost all focus except Elena. I… I've ignored you – you never seemed like you needed us. Me. I guess I like to be needed; I don't know how to look after someone who doesn't need to be looked after."

That was as much of an apology as Giulia was ever going to get from Stefan – for choosing Elena over her rather than making the effort with both.

"I forfeited the privilege of your friendship, Giulia… And realising what you did, what you've done – for all of us… I know you've done a lot of things nobody knows about, and why should you tell us, when we don't appreciate anything you've done… I let you down, I pushed you out of your own home, I made you feel…unloved and irrelevant. I never appreciated you. I know I'm going to regret that, more than I have regretted a lot of things," Stefan said quietly. "I let my love for Elena blind me to anything else, especially your suffering… I let my love for Elena blind me to a lot of things." Giulia turned to Stefan, raising her eyebrows. _What_? she thought, surprised. "I'm sorry."

Giulia nodded. She didn't know what to say.

"You should know something, before you go and find Klaus," Giulia said, and she indicated him to follow her. She strode upstairs, to Stefan's cluttered bedroom, to his armoire of journals, and plucked out the diary from 1922 that she had replaced after showing it to Elijah to explain how Elena had ended up wearing his mother's pendant.

"I hate this journal," Stefan frowned. "I…was at my worst."

"I know," Giulia said. "You were the Ripper of Monterrey. But you changed, while you were in Chicago."

"All I know about my time in Chicago was it still remains a confused blur in my memory. A lot of parties, a lot of blood, a lot of things I can't explain." Giulia turned the page to the first time Stefan ever saw Rebekah. A small square photograph kept the page marked. She showed it to Stefan.

"When you were writing in this journal, you knew who these people were," Giulia said. "Your lover Rebekah, and her bullying older-brother, Nik."

"I've re-read that journal a hundred times, it never gets any less confusing," Stefan said.

"You knew them, Stefan," Giulia said softly. "Elijah's brother and sister – Rebekah and Nik – Ni _klaus_."

"You're saying I knew two Originals?" Stefan said doubtfully..

"No; _you_ said it," Giulia said, pointing to the journal. "Imagine you had been compelled to forget Rebekah and _Nik_ …the holes in your memory… Would things make more sense?"

Stefan sank down onto his bed, cradling the journal in his hands, staring at the photograph.

"I knew them," he whispered wonderingly to himself. "I knew them? Why would they compel me to forget them?"

"To protect you," Giulia said quietly. "You were Klaus' friend, while he was _Nik_. They left Chicago, he probably put a silver-dagger in Rebekah's heart the night Gloria's was attacked by the police using wooden bullets… You couldn't hurt them or be hurt yourself if you didn't remember you had ever known them."

"Why would they run?" Stefan frowned, realising striking as he glanced up. "They were running from someone – Elijah?"

"Maybe," Giulia shrugged enigmatically. "The way Klaus treats people I'm sure he has no shortage of enemies. But you were his friend. And that's important… He needs someone he trusts not to betray him to be his wingman. And you used to be, back in the Twenties."

"What are you…?"

"What's happened, the reality of lifting the spell, he wasn't prepared for that. He made it up in his mind over a thousand years how things would be when he finally lifted his mother's 'curse'. In his mind, he's the victim of his family's cruelty; he would never for one second have considered his mother was protecting him with the spell," Giulia said. "Stefan, he has no idea of the repercussions of what he's done, he won't know who or what he is, what his strengths and weaknesses are, how to control himself… He will kill Elijah, he won't forgive that Elijah tried to kill him. But he needs someone who'll _look after him_."

Stefan closed the journal, tucking the photograph inside, and glanced up at Giulia. Understanding emanated from his eyes, and he nodded.

"I've got Klaus… Keep an eye on Damon while I'm gone," he said, and Giulia nodded. With that, Stefan was gone. Giulia paused, listening to him go; he left the keys to his _Porsche_ on the credenza in the foyer and ran out of the house. Giulia glanced around his cluttered room. Since 1903 this had been the bedroom, the home he had returned to time and again, leaving bits and pieces of history behind. She had sent Stefan off to sacrifice himself to Klaus for his brother's life. Would he ever return to this house, this room he had left so much of his life in? Could she without guilt redecorate this house, his room, leave him with no home to return to?

She pulled an ancient leather duffel from Stefan's closet and packed supplies for him.

Klaus was clever enough to realise how epically fucked he was. That things had gone catastrophically _not_ the way he had wanted. That without Elijah he needed someone whose loyalty he could be certain of to take care of him, be his…bodyguard.

If the enemies he had made learned how vulnerable Klaus would soon discover himself to be, they would tear the world apart to find him, to fight each other in their selfish efforts for revenge.

Giulia had given her word to Elijah that no-one would kill Klaus, if she could prevent it. He belonged to his siblings to torment for the rest of eternity; no-one had more right to that than his family. Any harm he had inflicted on strangers was nothing to how he had treated his brothers and sisters, the one niece who had survived the war he had started. But Klaus would soon learn what his weaknesses were, would be crippled by his rage and regret, paranoia surging to the fore. And he would need someone to clean up his messes and make sure word did not spread that he had lifted the spell that had made him strong.

There was the obvious danger, that in his rage and impotence, his paranoia would only grow, his _cruelty_ would manifest exponentially in compensation.

He lacked compassion.

Giulia intended to find a way to shove it down his throat to prevent him becoming _worse_ for lifting the curse. This was a chance – for his siblings, to take back everything he had taken from them, to exact their vengeance on him. And for Klaus to…become a better person.

If she could be the one who set things in motion to bring about _both_ those things…

She blinked, smiling to herself, and strode up to the attic. In lieu of a hiding-place more protected than the attic, she had tucked Dr Martin's collection of grimoires in the attic. She had asked whether Sheila wanted them, for her own collection or as donation to the university; Sheila had been nervous about being the caretaker of so much knowledge. Words were power, and Dr Martin had thousands of grimoires, all filled with spells. Some had set Sheila's teeth on edge, some were ordinary, everyday, practical magic. But she didn't want the responsibility of keeping them, or painting a target on her back should other, more ambitious witches, discover she had so much of their heritage stolen away. So Giulia had kept them. And she paused at the stairwell up to the attic. She had had Sheila spell it, protected.

She lifted her foot to the first step, and climbed up the stairs. She entered the attic without resistance. She had taken a few hours while Elijah spent time with Kol and Ashlyn to go through some of the grimoires and organise them, though the job was far from done. After Sheila had given her a lesson on deciphering the spells, Giulia had sat and gone through some of the grimoires, and she remembered a particular spell that could be tweaked uniquely. She picked out the grimoire she wanted and made her way downstairs, carrying the duffel for Stefan into Damon's bedroom, and went down to the cellar she hated.

Giulia could smell the decay. Smell the poison in Damon's veins, slowly rotting him from the inside, slowly leaching into his mind, dredging up every awful memory, every bad decision, the moments in his life that had fashioned the person he now was. Brave, but afraid of letting people see the real man beneath the smirk and swagger. Kind, and tough, he had purpose, protecting the people he cared about. He wanted to be seen for who he was, but was afraid of the expectation of goodness from him – and people's disappointment when he couldn't live up to it. She wondered who he was having nightmares about, reliving his old memories. She would imagine Katherine. There was no-one more closely linked to his transformation than her.

"Damon _…_?"

She peered through the bars of the door, sighing. He lay on his front, his dark clothing dusty, a small pool of blood glistening in the horrible lighting. Even in the gloom she could see the sweat beaded on his brow, the way his eyes darted beneath his lids, the veins beneath his eyes, his laboured breathing and the tiny hint of fangs as he groaned and curled up in pain, grimacing. Beyond him, she could see the damage Hayley, as a transformed werewolf, had wrought on the cellar, deep claw-marks gored into the old walls. She wondered how the door looked like on the inside; Sheila had spelled the cellar to contain the supernatural, the door had nothing to do with their captivity. But unlock it, open it, and the spell was lifted temporarily.

He panted, groaning, and sighed in exhaustion as he rolled over, sprawling onto his back. His pale eyes glittered in the awful lighting, blood smeared down his chin. His own. He focused on her, and groaned in pain again.

"Now _you're_ haunting me too?" he grimaced. Giulia gazed into the cellar at him. She opened her mouth, but he kept talking. "Guess I shouldn't be surprised; I see you everywhere… I _hate_ this house. Everywhere. You know that, you're _everywhere_. Thought with Zachary gone you'd leave too…"

"I'm not going anywhere, Damon."

"Gianna…" Damon sighed, and Giulia blinked.

"It's Giulia, Damon," she said quietly.

"Great. _You_ , now?" Damon groaned, hunching over painfully. "Stefan's left me to…face my demons while he goes off playing Superman."

"He's going to get your cure, Damon," Giulia assured him quietly.

"And how do you know that?"

"I told him where to find it."

"You're omniscient now?"

"Just well-connected," Giulia chuckled softly. She sighed. "Nobody told you I survived the sacrifice?"

"Know Elena did," Damon shrugged. "Stef told me."

"He does have a one-track mind," Giulia said, pulling a face. She sighed, "He apologised for ignoring me. Said his love for Elena blinded him to things."

"Huh." Damon peered at her. " _Giulia_?"

"You look like you could use a drink," she said, unlocking the cellar door. Damon groaned, trying to clamber to his feet; he moaned and wretched, dry-heaving, and shuddered, almost knocked off his feet by the violence of a coughing fit. He spit out a mouthful of his own blood, groaning.

"A drink? Try a witch-doctor," Damon groaned, gasping. Giulia surreptitiously injected him with some very concentrated vervain to knock him out – she knew how much physical pain and emotional anguish Elijah had endured from his bite, she didn't want him to be conscious for all of it. Damon sighed, and collapsed.

She surprised herself with her new strength – she hoisted Damon over her shoulder in a fireman's lift without any effort whatsoever, traipsed upstairs to Damon's spacious bedroom, an expensive, oddly romantic chamber full of panelling, a large mirror, an old trunk and little else. In contrast to Stefan he was a minimalist; he kept what was truly precious to him, and hid things away, finding them too painful to look at every day. He was halfway through a copy of _Doctor Zhivago_ , resting beside an empty tumbler that still smelled of bourbon on the bedside-table. Some of Rose's clothes were strewn over the armchair, and Giulia could scent her on the sheets. She knew Rose hadn't moved permanently into the bedroom Giulia had suggested she claim. Damon was lonely, and Rosemary was heartbroken; of course they would take comfort in each other, no commitments, no strings attached, just friendship.

She folded Rose's clothes and put them on top of the dresser, pulling the armchair up closer to the bed, and settled in for a long night. Though the vervain had knocked Damon out, his body still reacted to the poison spreading from the nip on his forearm that kept tickling Giulia's nose with the scent of poison and decay, and he was a writhing, sweating mess, eyes rolling behind his lids; the only sounds he made were to murmur to himself, his end of a conversation between…Giulia's mother. Gianna.

"You know that it might not work… It could speed things up, or just not make any difference… You had the surgery, didn't you? …They want you to… So it's either you or the baby? My blood could affect the baby…don't know it's ever even been _done_ before… Vampire-blood isn't a miracle-cure, it can't stop Nature getting what it wants; too many witches have drilled that into my brain… You're sure this is what you want, Gianna? …Zach? …Guess I'd better tap a vein, then. Time for your medicine…"

And then it got scarier. He stopped writhing, stopped moving around at all, he seemed to come out of the vervain-coma and could gaze at her with eyes bleary with pain, disoriented, frightened, but he was obviously too exhausted, too _sick_ to move. His breaths were laboured, he was still a sweaty mess, but he was a little more aware, conscious that it was her, Giulia, sitting with him.

She sighed softly. "Why did you give my mother your blood, Damon?"

"Giulia?"

"You've been talking to yourself… To my mother," Giulia said. Damon writhed, groaning. Giulia waited for the fit to pass, and he sagged back against the mattress, exhausted, pale as – well, death – stinking of sweat and poison and decay, and Giulia sat on the edge of her seat. Waiting. Either for Stefan to return, or Damon to…die. He sighed, squirming under his sheets, and his eyes glinted, barely slits, resting on her.

"What did I say?"

"Why were you giving my mother your blood while she was pregnant with me?" She gazed at him, willing him to lie to her, afraid of what he might say, but…strangely desperate to know. The truth. Why the Gilbert device had affected her. Perhaps why she had cheated death as a vampire, only to resurrect… _enhanced_.

"I was just passing through town. Didn't plan to stick around – but Gianna… I've met a lot of people, but Gianna…she was rare. Like you. Enigmatic, powerful, she was…kind. Magnetic. And wholly unselfish…like you. All she wanted was you. The day I met her, I heard your heartbeat. Strong and steady, and I loved you from that moment on… But I smelled something, too. Gianna didn't know, couldn't – she had cancer. Just little lumps to begin with, but…the specialist said they were… _aggressive_. Said she had months, if that, he'd never seen a case so severe, and he was the best in the state… They gave Gianna a choice: She could terminate her pregnancy, have her treatment, and hope. Or she could stop any treatment beyond the surgery, and see how long she deteriorated trying to bring you into the world…"

"She stopped her treatment," Giulia said quietly.

"It wasn't even a choice," Damon smiled sadly, his gaze faraway, remembering the woman Giulia had never known. He sighed heavily. "Gianna was four months along when she had the surgery to remove the cancer. She never had chemo or radiotherapy. Instead, every day, I gave her some of my blood. It temporarily kept the cancer at bay, and allowed her to…well, bring you into the world… You gestated with vampire-blood in your system."

The reason why she had been affected by the Gilbert device. Like Tyler, she had been born with some latent supernatural potential. She had been _in utero_ with vampire-blood coursing through her veins, gestating, growing, with it fashioning what she was…but she had been _born_.

That was important.

Giulia had been _born_. With vampire and human blood rushing through her veins, infused in every cell. A latent potential – possibly triggered by being turned, and her death. A _mutation_ of the very nature of vampire, which were _made_ and never born. She had evolved to survive what would kill any vampire but the very first created, the Originals.

"Nature has a way of getting what it wants," Giulia said thoughtfully. _Balance_ , she thought, and she was reminded of Elijah, his mother, her spell. To create a species superior to the werewolves – stronger, more durable, with greater agility, healing, senses. But flawed to a devastating degree, by accident. A bloodlust that outshone a werewolf's. The inability to procreate. Punished by the sun. Prevented from entering a mortal's home without invitation.

Giulia felt no lust but the ordinary, heightened, supernatural sexual kind. She still needed her reading-glasses. Her senses were heightened, and she had more delicate fangs than Caroline's. She could – well, _heal_. From anything, apparently.

She wondered whether she would have returned as a vampire had Sheila Bennett not healed her from the werewolves' torture and she had died. Whether the latent potential in her that had hurt her the night the Gilbert device was set off would have manifested itself, to save her life. She believed it wasn't turning into a vampire that triggered some strange mutation in her – it was the fire.

Damon let out a groan that seemed to come from his marrow, he was in so much pain. But he pointed to the door. "Closet."

"You know you can't take your watches with you," Giulia sighed. She planned to raid his collection. He gave her a humourless chuckle, squirming in bed, trying to get up. Giulia pushed him back, and sighed. "What do you want me to get?"

"Behind the dresser. Hidden door," Damon panted, collapsing against the pillows with a sigh, exhausted, clutching his chest with a grimace. She opened the door to Damon's plush walk-in closet, meticulously arranged dark shirts he pressed himself with the iron Stefan couldn't find – and the tailored pants, jeans, tuxedo and Italian-cut suits, the luxurious designer luggage and his exquisite collection of watches. He had at least one-hundred, ranging from an antique pocket-watch that had to be wound by hand every night, to exclusive limited-edition, hundreds-of-thousands of dollar designer watches. She sighed, and found it very easy to shift the dresser away from the wall, her new sight discerning a seam in the panelling, the musty scent. She was still farsighted, so she had to squint, but she found the little notch that released the panel, and inside found a steamer-trunk similar to the one Damon kept his photos and precious things in. She lifted it out, carrying it easily to the bed, and set it down.

"One-nine-oh-six," Damon coughed, and Giulia unlocked the trunk, lifting the lid. She blinked, surprised. A wash of white, pale-green, yellow, dainty florals. Baby-clothes. Meticulously vacu-packed. Blankets, a handful of plush toys, baby-books, a mobile, scrapbooks, fat photograph-albums. Her infancy in a box. Hidden away in a secret compartment. There were handmade blankets and a little pillow appliqued and embroidered with her name and date of birth – the full name her mother had given her that no-one ever called her. Giuliette Aria Lucrezia.

"Why do you have this?" Giulia whispered.

"Album," Damon groaned, pointing at one of the fat photograph-albums. Giulia frowned at him, disconcerted, lugged one of the albums out, and sank onto the bed, her legs knocked out from under her, completely winded, as she stared at the first dozen photographs neatly – _lovingly_ – arranged behind the protective film.

Photographs of a dark-haired, smiling baby with uncanny silver-grey eyes. And a beautiful blue-eyed woman who looked so like her it hurt.

Her mother. With her. In her nursery; in the gardens, toddling, gripping her mother's fingers, grinning from a little blanket; a beautiful posed shot of her breastfeeding; in her mother's arms, cuddling, sucking her thumb. New-born, to a toddler. A tiny, fragile, delicate thing, to a little creature instantly recognisable as her. And her mother…

Alive.

In the photographs.

In her _life_.

The mother she had killed in childbirth was… _alive_.

She stared at the photographs so long, everything else faded away. Her mother had…survived? Childbirth, at least. Survived to see her reach her first birthday; to laugh as she had baby playdates with beaming, curly-haired little Caroline.

The crushing weight of her heightened emotions crippled her lungs, her shock and heartbreak so exquisitely painful.

"You let me believe I'd killed her."

"She passed away when you were eighteen months old," Damon said breathlessly, stifling a grunt of pain. His face was sheened with sweat, his eyes disoriented, out of focus, his fangs and the veins under his eyes flickering in and out. "You were born here in this bed… When she finally weaned you, she started the process for her treatment. Stopped taking my blood… She died three weeks later." Nature had a way of getting what it wanted; Gianna had cheated death too long.

"You lied," Giulia whispered, staring at the photographs. She hadn't killed her mother. Her mother…had _loved_ her. Watched her grow. Sacrificed herself for the child growing inside her.

Her sore heart was obliterated.

She saw Stefan arrive through eyes swimming with hot tears. He stared at her, pausing at the door. She took a deep breath, blinked away her tears, and focused on the blood smeared around his mouth, the bourbon bottle in his hand, a pint of blood contained within. She stared at the blood on his face – as if he had…been consumed by feeding, squashing blood-bags to his face in an effort to consume every last drop. His eyes looked dazed, barely in focus – barely holding it together.

"Stef?" Damon murmured.

"I told you I'd find a way," Stefan panted, his voice low, guttural, scared. He strode into the room, relief flooding his features – that he hadn't been too late, that Giulia's tears weren't for Damon. He looked like he was barely holding it together, glancing at Giulia. "I've been given enough to get this to Damon… I have to go back."

"For how long?" Giulia asked.

"'Decade-long bender' were his words," Stefan said, looking like he was shaking. He licked his lips, handing her the bourbon bottle. "We'll see. You were right… He made me feed…said I'd be 'of use; to him. I'm…I'm leaving town."

"You have your phone?"

"I do."

"Make sure to keep in touch," Giulia said softly. There wasn't much she could say for Stefan, he had made sure she had only experienced the worst of him. But his love for his big-brother transcended everything else – even his love for Elena. He didn't mention her, but Giulia wondered if he wished she were here. There was no emotional cinematic goodbye; Stefan gave her the bottle, took the bag she had packed for him, smiled grimly at Damon, trying to sit up and stop him. But then he was gone.

Giulia knew he wouldn't risk a farewell to Elena in person, not when there was a good chance Klaus was stalking Stefan to enforce their deal if it looked like he was going to try and renege on the terms. As far as Klaus knew, Elena – and by extension Giulia – was dead; she was safest if she remained that way, and knocking on her door to say goodbye…

Stefan had paused, once, in the doorway, his features solemn as he said, "Elijah's dead…but you already knew that… Goodbye, Giulia."

He was gone. Damon groaned. Giulia tipped a trickle of blood down his throat, and he sighed and settled back, relieved, the pallor of his skin warming as she stoppered the bottle.

"What just – _happened_?" Damon groaned, glancing at Giulia.

"Stefan just proved how much he loves you."

Damon sighed, eyeing the bottle. "Better keep _that_ safe."

"I intend to," Giulia assured him, eyeing the bottle. For a little while, they sat in silence, the bottle of blood resting next to Giulia's leg as she perched on the edge of the bed, a heavy photograph-album open in her lap.

He had lied. They had _all_ lied. To…what, protect her from the truth? Which truth was more destructive, that her mother had died of cancer after willingly refusing treatment to bear her, or to tell a small child that she had killed her mother the day she had been born? Giulia had spent her entire childhood simultaneously longing for and resenting her mother for dying the day she was born. For being the shadow over every birthday, the ghost in the empty house. Her wholehearted acceptance that she had _killed her mother_ had fashioned who she was, had shaped her – she could _not_ understand childbirth, pregnancy freaked her out, she found it unnatural, she resented she had never had the _bond_ … But she had. They had – they had all, her father, Damon, her _mother_ – all _lied_ to her. Damon watched her, going through the photographs, getting more and more upset, and angry, the more she absorbed, memorising.

"We couldn't know what the side-effects would be," he said quietly, and Giulia sniffled delicately. "You were born after Gianna ingested vampire-blood every day for five months, carrying you… We couldn't know. And it didn't look like they were any, until…"

"The Gilbert device went off," Giulia said, clearing her throat when it caught, her throat hot, tight, her eyes burning.

"Whatever you were – whatever you _are_ … Your dad trusted me to keep an eye on you," Damon sighed, and Giulia stiffened. He knew he was toeing a line. "I don't know what it means, that you… _came back_ , that you healed from… _burning_ , as a vampire. I just know the risk was worth it for your mother. And whatever you turn out to be, if you ever figure it out…it doesn't matter. What mattered to your mother, your dad, was _who_ you'd become. Not what."

Time would tell what she was, like Niklaus – and in spite of his best intentions – Giulia had a lifetime to figure out her strengths and flaws, beyond needing reading-glasses, not burning in the sun, something she admitted she had taken for granted. Thinking over what she had experienced so far, she was reminded of Elijah, telling her about the traits his mother had desired for her children, to survive their war with the werewolves. Hypersensitivity, a _bite_ , strength. She would have to test her agility – whether or not she could compel – but she felt no desire to drink blood, hadn't, since waking up in the ring of fire last-night.

Damon sighed, slipping off the bed, starting to unbutton his shirt, his movements deft, no longer clumsy and laboured. "Well…that's my baby-bro for you. Martyring himself for his evil brother's salvation."

"You're hardly evil; just selfish," Giulia said honestly. "We're all flawed." She shrugged at his raised eyebrows.

"So a decade with the devil, huh?" Damon sighed, sauntering to run himself a bath. "As the Ripper, I'm guessing. Hope Lexi doesn't find out he's doing this for me."

"I don't know," Giulia said thoughtfully. "It may be the making of him."

"How d'you figure that?"

"Because Klaus is a _mess_. One of them has to keep it together to cover their tracks," Giulia said simply. "Anyway, Klaus would never respect Stefan's diet; he'll have to learn how to function on human-blood."

"You think so?" Giulia shrugged a shoulder.

"You're feeling better?"

"Fresh as a daisy," Damon smirked. "Once I bathe this horrible day away. And then, I shall tear Matt Donovan limb from limb."

"What? Why?"

"Oh, he tried to shoot me in the heart with a wooden bullet," Damon shrugged unconcernedly. "Got Jeremy Gilbert instead."

" _What_?!"

"Did no-one mention that?" Damon asked unconcernedly. "I wouldn't worry. The witches did a _spell_. John Gilbert sacrificed his life to bring Jeremy back." Giulia remembered _not_ seeing John earlier when she had brought Elena back, safe and sound. "Pretty much the only decent thing the guy ever did. So now, I'm going to eviscerate Matthew Donovan. I mean, his life is basically a _tragic_ waste anyway."

"Leave him alone," Giulia sighed, and Damon smirked, his murder-face already on. "You turned and murdered his sister, one assassination-attempt is his due." Their family had some amends to make to Matthew Donovan; Giulia would figure out how to do that. "Enjoy your bath."

She left Damon's room, carrying the trunk of her stolen infancy, Klaus' blood tucked under her chin. She sat down on the daybed and sighed, carefully opening the trunk.

"A decade's indentured servitude for a pint of Niklaus' blood," a voice said, the air barely disturbed as Kol appeared, the bourbon bottle in his hand. "Raw deal."

"Someone could turn it into quite the musical," Giulia said drily. Although sacrificing one's life to save one's brother's was a little nobler than stealing – even if it was a loaf of bread for your sister's son."

"Now that you have this," Kol said, indicating the bottle, "what little surprises do you have in store for Niklaus?"

"It was arrogant of him to give up his blood – just to have Stefan," Giulia smirked, reaching for the bottle; Kol gave it to her. "I have some ideas. But he's your cousin; I'd love to hear your thoughts."

Kol's grin was slow and devilish.

"I've thought about this for a thousand years," he said breathlessly. "You'd need to be very careful. And subtle. He couldn't ever suspect it has anything to do with magic."

"I agree," Giulia said quietly. She glanced at him, biting her lip, and said softly, "I'd thought you and the others would've been gone by now."

"Not until Niklaus has left," Kol sighed heavily. "What's all this?"

"Family-history," Giulia said. "Yours isn't the only family with secrets."

"And Elijah shared some of those with you," Kol said carefully, giving her a look. "I heard Stefan earlier."

"I am sorry," Giulia said earnestly.

"I know," Kol smiled sadly. "The thing is, I know both of you expected it. Even planned it. Elijah told me some secrets, too."

"Did he?" Giulia smiled carelessly, and Kol nodded, still smiling.

"He wanted me to give you this," he said, producing something wrapped in muslin and a pea-green grosgrain ribbon. Giulia undid the bow, gently unfolding the muslin fabric, and revealed…a jewellery-box. Exquisite wood, the polish fresh, incredibly tactile, beautiful wood, glowing, with delicate indentations rather than knobs to open the dainty drawer underneath the central compartment, and two curved little compartments with domed doors that folded out and open. She opened the large central lid to discover a mirror, set into a lining that was exquisitely mosaicked in tiny wooden and mother-of-pearl tiles, and several dainty-to-large parcels meticulously wrapped, and under a small sliding tray, a stack of hand-addressed envelopes.

"What is all this?" Giulia asked thickly, her eyes burning.

"Elijah said you're to open _this_ first, in private. But the others, choose one with each envelope you open. They're birthday gifts," Kol smiled sadly. "Elijah loves birthdays. And he'll miss yours." She had been born on Midsummer's Eve. He would miss her birthday. She eyed the longer, tube-shaped parcel Kol had handed her on its own, taking a good, cheeky guess what it was, her mood lifting with the idea of how much Elijah would have blushed to even pick it out, and the thought of her _using_ it. She didn't have to open it to know what was inside that tube.

"Thank you for giving this to me," Giulia murmured, overcome with emotion – delight, sorrow, mixed with heartsickness and wistfulness.

"He asked me to keep an eye on you," Kol said, and Giulia smiled sadly. "Elijah and I know you're more than capable of looking after yourself. But if you ever need anything, you have my number. Come and see me in New Orleans some time."

"Thank you," Giulia said earnestly. "I will." Kol drifted off to think about suitable punishments for Niklaus, and Giulia turned to the trunk, Elijah's jewellery-box full of treats and letters, the wrapped tube in her lap, finding she couldn't bring herself to explore any of it. She sat, and she thought.

Elijah was dead.

Stefan was bound to Klaus for a decade.

She had ten years' worth of gifts and cards from Elijah, at a glance.

Tyler was a werewolf. Caroline, a vampire. Bonnie, an apprentice witch who had helped Sheila and an effectively orphaned Ashlyn resurrect Jeremy Gilbert from the dead. Elena had been abandoned.

Jenna and Ric were married.

Rose showed no sign of leaving Mystic Falls.

But Giulia was.

* * *

A fortnight later, Caroline laughed as she tucked her cheer-bag into the trunk of Giulia's _Beetle_ next to a battered leather duffel, shining in the sunshine, the newly-resuscitated teardrop-trailer glinting, hitched behind it, little curtains in the windows, freshly christened for her maiden-voyage.

"– _yes_ , Mom! We're sure we have everything!" Caroline beamed, waving the stuffed Filofax meticulously annotated with lists, maps, printed directions, reservation confirmations, tickets, festival tags, reminders, and contact-details. "And if we've forgotten anything, we can pick it up along the way."

"To be honest, you'll get a lot of mileage out of a tube of toothpaste and a leather thong," Giulia shrugged, and Liz chuckled.

"But you checked the tyres? And you've got plenty of snacks and water? And sunscreen? And you know which cities not to draw attention to yourself?" Liz asked anxiously. "And you know who to call if _anything_ happens–?"

" _Mom_ , we're gonna be okay," Caroline giggled, too excited. "We've done our research."

"I know; I'm just being a mom," Liz sighed, deflating. "Alright, c'mere. Give me a big hug, and you can go." She grabbed her daughter in a huge, lingering hug. Then she turned to Giulia, a slash of dark next to Caroline's airy sundress, sunglasses glinting. "And you, too. Be careful." She gave Giulia a huge hug, and then let go. She let them go, climbing into the Beetle, windows scrolled down, music playing, driving carefully with the addition of the trailer, and Liz waved until they were out of sight.

She sighed, already feeling the quiet in their absence.

"Don't worry, Liz," Damon said, hands in his pockets, as he sidled up beside her. He'd come as much to say his goodbyes to Liz as see the girls off; he was leaving Mystic Falls, itchy in this town without his little-brother around to hang out and fight with. According to Caroline, breaking the news to Elena of Stefan's indentured servitude to Klaus had fallen to Damon; he'd felt it his responsibility, since Stefan had made the deal to save his life. To say Elena wasn't handling things well was glossing over some pretty important details, but Liz was relieved she still had Jeremy around. Her heart had stopped the moment Matt's shot had hit Jeremy – right in the heart. Good aim, but he'd been so horrified he'd turned over the gun to Liz immediately. She didn't think he'd ever touch one again.

Damon sighed, squinting after the long-disappeared _Beetle_. "They'll be okay."

"No," Liz smiled gently. There was one thing she knew for sure, though everything she knew was changing again. Stefan was already gone; Damon was heading off, who knew where. 'Soul-searching', he'd teased, promising to send postcards to coax Liz into early-retirement. Their lovely friend Rose had decided to stay at the Boarding House as a live-in caretaker of sorts; Rose had agreed, and Giulia had asked Matt if he wanted to stay rent-free at the house for his senior-year so he could focus on school and attempting to get a football scholarship, with very educated Rose as private tutor.

Mason wanted to take Tyler to form connections and ties with other werewolves, he was planning a few weekend trips before he enrolled in the police academy, motivated to…settle down, and join the Sheriff's Department to help protect his friends, the town, use his position on the Founders' Council to _help_ people – Liz remembered the kid he had been, and hadn't been so sure, but she'd given him a series of interviews to test his mental-preparedness for the vocation, and she had come away from them impressed. She also felt that girl, Hayley, had something to do with the fact he wanted to come home to Mystic Falls and find a house.

Jeremy Gilbert was apparently headed to New York this week to start some summer art programme with the sweet girl Liz had met a couple weeks ago, apparently, Elijah's adopted-daughter. Ric and Jenna were headed to South America for their honeymoon, leaving a distraught Elena to the care of Bonnie.

Her world was changing, her kids…were growing up. Caroline and Giulia had left for a three-month road-trip across the continent. And then…who knew? The world was theirs.

"They'll be extraordinary."

* * *

 _The End_.

* * *

 _ **To continue reading about Giulia's adventures, look out for**_ **Machiavelli's Daughter** _ **, coming soon.**_


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